Microsoft Total Recalls Their Recall Feature Due to Privacy Concerns

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Quick Report

Microsoft has now decided to pull the Recall feature from their upcoming Windows 11 24H2 update, following concerns over privacy and security. The controversial feature, which stored screenshots and snapshots of user activity and then running it against an AI model on the NPU (Neural Processing Unit) that allows the user to search through past activity be it photos,videos or documents.

The data is stored locally in plain text format. According to Security Researcher Kevin Beaumont, this could potentially allow malicious actors to access sensitive information and compromise user privacy stored locally on a SQLite database.

In a new blog post, Microsoft is unhappy with its own security standard and decided to delay the rollout of the feature until further notice. The company also stated that they will be working on improving the security and privacy measures of the Recall feature before reintroducing it in a future update. The feature will be tested extensively in the Insider Release and its Preview rings before being released to the general public.

Source(s)

  • TechPowerUp
  • MSFT Blog
  • Recall with Copilot+ PCs