Microsoft Moves Forward With Controversial Recall Feature – Source: securityboulevard.com

Microsoft’s on-again, off-again rollout of its controversial Ai-powered Recall feature for its Copilot+ PCs is back on again, at least for those in the Windows Insider Release Preview channel.

Windows Recall is one of more than dozen new features that will gradually come out in the Windows 11 Build 26100.3902, the IT giant said in a release note this week. Microsoft’s Windows Insider program team pitched the same capabilities that the company has been promoting for almost a year and – executives hope – quell the security and privacy concerns it generated in 2024.

The memory feature is designed to give users quick access to information they may already have seen as they skipped across the internet, applications, and documents by taking snapshots every few of their activity on their Copilot+ machines.

The feature includes a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) to capture the snapshots that users can then go back to. The snapshots are stored in a database in the PC and are searchable via AI through text or images.

“With the AI capabilities of Copilot+ PCs, it’s now possible to quickly find and get back to any app, website, image, or document just by describing its content,” the Windows Insider team wrote. “As you use your Copilot+ PC throughout the day working on documents or presentations, taking video calls, and context switching across activities, Recall will take regular snapshots and help you find things faster and easier.”

Long, Strange Trip

The capability was supposed to be released in May 2024 and begin appearing in Copilot+ PCs the following month, but instead pulled it backs after facing escalating criticism from users and industry players over privacy and security concerns. Security researchers noted that preview versions stored the screenshots in unencrypted databases, making them a target of bad actors, and added that anyone with access to the system could also get access to the sensitive information in the screenshot.

There were other security and privacy issues raised, with some of them just coming down to some users not wanting snapshots taken of everything they do on their computers.

At the time, Microsoft officials said they would rearchitect it and put it through regular testing procedures, with plans to release it in October. However, on the last day of that month, Microsoft said Recall needed more time before it was released.

It was released to the Inside Preview Dev channel in December.

Users in Control

Microsoft has been expanding privacy and security capabilities into Recall over the months, including giving users more control over how and if it’s used. It’s an opt-in feature and users can delete snapshots, pause them, or turn them off whenever they want. The snapshots and associated data are save and encrypted on the local hard drive, they’re not shared with Microsoft or other third parities or with other Windows users on the same system.

Users have to be enrolled in Windows Hello to confirm their identity so only they can access the snapshots and data.

“When you need to find or get back to something you’ve done previously, open Recall and authenticate with Windows Hello,” Windows Insider team wrote. “When you’ve found what you were looking for, you can reopen the application, website, or document, or use Click to Do to act on any image or text in the snapshot you found.”

The Click to Do, another new feature in Windows update being previewed, lets users to immediately take action on the text or image they see on their screen. The actions can be anything from copying the text or image to search the web to ask Copilot about it.