Why is Windows Recall Controversial?

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced a suite of new features for Windows 11. These features were marketed as AI-powered time-savers and efficiency finders, and promised to bring useful AI to businesses of all sizes. However, one feature in particular caused a lot of controversy amongst the Windows user-base, leading to Microsoft postponing its release. That feature was Recall. This article details the controversy around Recall, and why you might want to be aware of it's functionality before purchasing an AI-powered machine.

For context, Recall takes a screenshot of a user's PC every five seconds. These screenshots are then saved in a folder, and analysed by AI every few seconds, categorising all the information it extracts, and storing it in a database that users can later search. Users can then use Recall to search for content they've seen in various apps, documents, or websites, and view their own past activity. The promise is that recall process all the content locally to each device, and stores it securely, without recording audio or video of the user's screen.

It may be fairly obvious why this feature was so controversial when it was announced. There were all kinds of questions from users around data security, privacy, and the sustainability of a feature like Recall.

It didn't help that when it launched in pre-release, the version Microsoft used didn't encrypt the data they stored, meaning that if any users were compromised, there could be screenshots of bank details, personal data, or passwords, stored in plain text for anyone to see.

After such a disastrous launch, it's perhaps not surprising that Microsoft delayed the launch of Recall until Autumn of this year.

The good news is that it's only available on AI+ powered PCs for the time being - meaning that most SMEs won't have to worry about it for a couple of years. You can now also disable the screenshot capability entirely, meaning that if you don't want to use the feature, you don't have to.