When Microsoft announced the AI-featured Windows Recall earlier this year, it was confident it would receive praise for the feature.
The main idea behind Recall was to provide users with AI-powered access to past activity on their Windows PC. Recall will capture a screenshot every five seconds, process the data and allow users to interact with that data using natural language.
After this there was a wave of criticism. Privacy and security advocates criticized Microsoft for several key aspects:
- The recall will run automatically after initial setup. In other words, it was an opt-out, not an opt-in.
- The database and data were not particularly secure during runtime.
Microsoft lifted the recall soon after and promised to do better. The company has now highlighted the changes made to the recall new blog post On the Windows Experience Blog.
Remember: security and privacy change
Microsoft addresses the criticism in several ways. First, by creating a Windows recall and opt-in experience. Microsoft says users will see the option to turn on recall during the out-of-box experience.
They can also turn it on later. Good news for users who want nothing to do with the recall: It can be uninstalled, despite Microsoft's previous comment that this wouldn't be possible.
Second, Microsoft is improving security by encrypting the recall database and running the necessary recall processes in an isolated environment.
Because of the added security, malware can no longer copy data during runtime.
Additionally, Windows Hello is required for some functions. Microsoft mentions that prompts are shown when users attempt to make changes to Recall's settings and when they want to access the Recall user interface.
There are also rate-limiting and anti-hammering measures to limit malware attacks.
Windows Recall: Privacy Controls Overview
The blog post provides a list of controls that users have over recall; Not all are new, however.
Here is the overview:
- Users control the amount of disk space used by the recall and how long the activity data is kept.
- Options to delete time limits, all data from a specific app or website, or anything that comes up during a search.
- Private browsing data is never saved in Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and other Chromium-based browsers.
- Website activity can be blocked in Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.
- A system tray icon highlights activity and provides access to recalls.
- The recall supports sensitive content filtering through Microsoft's Purview information security product.
concluding words
The announced changes address two key points of criticism: the recall was opt-out and the data was not properly protected.
There is still some uncertainty regarding implementation during setup and thereafter. Still, with Windows recalls being opt-in, it's less likely that the feature will run in the background without the user actually being aware of it.
What is your opinion on the announced changes? is it enough? Will you try Recall now, or is it still not something you're interested in? Feel free to leave a comment below.
Thanks for reading..
