Privacy Concerns Arise as Continuous Screenshots are Taken in the Background: Microsoft Shares Privacy Controls for Windows 11 Recall Feature

During yesterday's Build 2024 developer conference, Microsoft announced that certified Copilot+PCs would gain a new Recall function. Powered by artificial intelligence, this feature continuously takes screenshots in the background, saving them locally for AI to analyze and organize.

Users can later inspect a timeline of their activity over the past three months through the Recall function, including quick jumps to specific times, files, or web pages using keyword searches.

However, the need for the system to take screenshots every few seconds raises significant privacy concerns. Essentially, every action a user makes on their computer could be captured and recorded, which could understandably lead to user resistance.

A meme trending on X (formerly known as Twitter) today humorously highlights these concerns.

Recall's Privacy Control Features:

Recall timeline：

Today, Microsoft detailed the technical and privacy aspects of the Recall feature, aiming to alleviate concerns. Users can filter out specific apps or websites they prefer not to be captured, preventing these from appearing on the timeline.

Once activated, a special icon in the desktop's notification area alerts users that Recall is on. All screenshots and analyzed data are encrypted and stored locally.

When AI processes and analyzes these screenshots, all generated data remains on the device, ensuring no data is sent to Microsoft or third parties. This means the feature can be used offline.

Notably, within Windows 11's privacy settings, users can adjust the Recall feature, such as modifying screenshot settings, filtering certain apps (to avoid capturing them), filtering specific websites (to avoid capturing them), and managing storage space.

However, the website filtering feature is limited to Microsoft Edge and other Chromium-based browsers. It won't support Firefox or browsers using different engines, including IE. Moreover, the AI might automatically filter out some websites, even if the user hasn't specifically chosen to do so.

The tray icon for the Recall function provides quick controls, notifying users when a screenshot is taken and allowing immediate pausing of screenshots, opening Recall, or accessing Recall settings.

It's important to note that the Recall feature is exclusive to Copilot+PCs, devices equipped with an NPU chip capable of 40TOPS of computational performance. Currently, aside from Copilot+PCs, no other devices support this feature.