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Microsoft’s Recall

The company unveiled a new suite of AI features with Copilot+ PCs back in May including a controversial feature. They dubbed it, Recall, and it has the ability to take ‘snapshots’ of your PC.

Snapshots are simply frames, pictures, or whatever is on your screen at the current moment. It allows you the ability to see your entire session from power up to power down in a replay.

Imagine the implications of an AI service that is still under rapid development now being in control of keeping history tabs on you. It was quickly met with acclaim then promptly criticized as publicity grew.

Yesterday, Microsoft backtracked on this feature being a ship with solution and made it optionable and off by default. This whole debacle caught my eye and I decided to breakdown the reasoning behind the outrage.

Walking Off A Rough Landing…

Recall originally on launch was a track heading to a security disaster. Prior to the backlash, the AI was labeled as ‘encrypted’ with no mention of what is actually used to do so. They also neglected to provide Recall local security features allowing all users on the machine to access other users snapshots.

A total security disaster.

Fortunately, Microsoft has pivoted to provide more security features before the June 18th release. Window’s 11 users rejoiced everywhere as Microsoft VP Pavan Davuluri wrote a blog post to detail their plans.

"Even before making Recall available to customers, we have heard a clear signal that we can make it easier for people to choose to enable Recall on their Copilot+ PC and improve privacy and security safeguards," wrote the Microsoft executive.

Implementing more features such as the need to enable Windows Hello in order to activate Recall. This means you’ll need to provide a face ID scan, fingerprint scan, or PIN to access it and it must be every time.

Microsoft also called attention to the changes they’re making with how Recall stores your data. They will be encrypting the SQLite database and snapshots so they too require Windows Hello. Scary to think this wasn’t on before as they claim the database’s size is only kilobytes making it very easy to transport to other services 😅 .

These features are in active development now with test builds still being delayed to deploy these changes.

Close Calls

Windows 11 lives to see another week on my computer as Microsoft makes good on its promise. Personally, I may only use Recall to see what it’s capable of but I know many who would find the utility of it great.

The possibilities of it being used professionally is outstanding. I work in Support and being able to see what is exactly happening to a machine in the moment sounds fantastic.

How do you feel about using Recall in the future? Leave your opinion below, we want to see everyone’s consensus and we’ll share it on Friday!