Windows 11's new AI feature could be a privacy nightmare

Your PC will be watching your every move by default.

- ALAINA YEE

At its Build 2024 conference, Microsoft unveiled a new AI trick for Windows PCs—one that can help users locate or remember details from their digital past. It could be looking for a PDF file worked on a couple of weeks ago. Or perhaps finding the name of a restaurant recommended by a friend earlier this year. Called Microsoft Recall, this feature could save you many lost minutes trying to hunt down whatever’s eluding your memory.

Yet even before its launch, Microsoft Recall (fave.co/4bVAAwo) is already giving security experts indigestion. Underneath the futuristic shine, Recall comes with a potential massive hit to user privacy—and by extension, security. Here are the reasons for the unease—and what you should do when you actually encounter Microsoft Recall in the wild.

1. IT WATCHES AND RECORDS EVERYTHING YOU DO ON YOUR PC

When active, Microsoft Recall monitors your every move while you’re on your computer, capturing screenshots every five seconds as your screen changes. Local AI helps Windows determine when you’ve done something different enough to warrant a screen grab.

Local AI also assists in parsing the images to extract text, so that details can be offered as search results whenever you decide you want to look up, say, the green jacket you saw online a few weeks ago.

By default, Microsoft Recall will commandeer anywhere between 25GB to 150GB (fave.co/45v5CZt) on your storage drive—up to about three months’ worth of data. Nothing is sacred, either. Passwords, tax details, and other sensitive details (really, anything you do) are fair game. To protect some of your privacy, you must manually exclude websites, private browsing sessions (if you don’t use Edge), and applications from Recall’s reach.