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Microsoft announced in June with “Recall“ introduced a new search function for Windows that is intended to help users find information on their PCs more easily. Through the use of AI, screenshots of the screen are regularly taken, from which a searchable directory is created. For example, users can rediscover a travel website without remembering the exact name by searching for visual elements such as “palm trees” or “beach”.
The feature will be implemented on the new “Copilot+PC” devices, a new category of PCs specifically designed to leverage AI capabilities. This cooperation with various manufacturers aims to simplify and improve interaction with AI.
However, critical voices have already been raised, expressing concerns about data protection. Experts warned of potential security holes that could allow attackers to access the saved screenshots. To address these concerns, announced Microsoftto take measures to improve data protection. This includes not capturing screenshots of sensitive data such as passwords, credit card information or health and financial information. As well:
- Private surfing in supported browsers is never saved.
- Users can filter out specific apps or websites that appear in supported browsers.
- Users can control how long recall content is retained and how much space is allocated to snapshots.
- Sensitive content filtering is enabled by default and reduces the storage of passwords, ID numbers, and credit card numbers in Recall. The same library is also the basis for Microsoft’s information protection product Purview which is used in companies worldwide.
- Found something you didn’t want to save? You can delete a time period, all content of an app or website, or all items found in Recall Search.
- An icon in the taskbar lets you know when snapshots are being saved and allows you to quickly and easily pause snapshot saving.
In addition, “Recall” is no longer activated by default, but must be switched on manually. David Weston, vice president of enterprise and operating system security at Microsoft also mentionedthat the service should now be able to be completely uninstalled if the users so wish.
Recall is an opt-in function. During setup of Copilot+ PCs, users are clearly shown whether they want to enable snapshot saving with Recall. If a user does not proactively enable the feature, it will be disabled and snapshots will not be created or saved. Users can also remove Recall completely by using the Optional Features settings in Windows.
Confidential data is always encrypted in Recall and the keys are protected.
Snapshots and all related information in the vector database are always encrypted. The encryption keys are protected via the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), tied to a user’s Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security identity, and can only be used by operations within a secure environment called a Virtualization-based Security Enclave (VBS Enclave) is referred to. This means that other users cannot access these keys and therefore cannot decrypt this information.
The question remains whether the measures announced by Microsoft are enough to address data protection concerns.
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