New Windows Screenshot Feature Sparks Privacy Concerns

The new AI-powered Windows ‘Recall’ feature that takes 5-second screenshots to generate a searchable timeline of everything a user has interacted with has prompted security and privacy concerns. 

What Is Recall? 

The Recall feature for Windows (currently in preview status) is a new feature that’s exclusive to Microsoft’s forthcoming Copilot+ PCs. Recall takes snapshots of whatever is on your screen every five seconds (e.g. emails, and photos), while content on the screen is different from the previous snapshot. These snapshots are then stored (encrypted) and analysed using optical character recognition (OCR), which uses AI, locally on the user’s PC. The collection of snapshots is designed to give users not only a timeline of everything they’ve done and seen, but they can use voice commands to search through it for what they need, e.g. for any content (text and images) they may have been working on or seen. Microsoft says the functionality will be improved “over time” to enable users to open the actual source document, website, or email in a screenshot.