A few hours later he promises never to destroy the human race with his artificial intelligenceA brilliant new artificial intelligence feature coming to Windows 11 has been branded a “privacy nightmare” by campaigners and prompted an investigation by the UK’s data protection watchdog.
A new flashy gimmick, called Recall, was announced alongside the first Copilot+ computers that will enjoy exclusive features in Windows 11 earlier this week.
Recall is the main feature of this Copilot+ PC table, which allows you to go through everything that happened on your Windows 11 PC and jump back in time with a single click. Everything is searchable because the AI went through the images and text on the device
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Recall takes screenshots all you do on the screen and use on-device AI to analyze the content and enable text and image searches with the Copilot AI chatbot.
For example, if you know you’ve been looking at flights to Spain in the last month – you can search for the destination and find the exact website. Windows 11 brings up a document, image, video or web page with a single click to pick up where you left off.
You can also scroll back in time with screenshots that are taken periodically throughout the day and can be stored for months.
Recall will not take screenshots whenever you use a private browsing mode, such as Google Chrome’s incognito mode, Microsoft assured PC owners. It’s also not enabled by default, so you’ll have to actively dive into the Settings menu and turn the feature on.
Despite these assurances, the UK’s data protection watchdog is “inquiring” with Microsoft about a new feature that can take screenshots every few seconds.
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) he told the BBC that companies must “rigorously assess and mitigate risks to people’s rights and freedoms” before bringing new products to market. The data protection regulator said it was “asking Microsoft to understand the security measures in place to protect user privacy”.
Privacy campaigners reacted strongly to the Recall announcement.
“This could be a privacy nightmare,” Dr Kris Shrishak, an AI and privacy consultant, told the BBC. “The mere fact that screenshots will be taken while using the device can have a chilling effect on people.”
Jen Caltrider, who serves as program director for Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included team, warned that Recall would allow anyone with access to your laptop or desktop PC to treasure personal information because it contains a categorized list of recent activity. .
Caltrider warned: “[This includes] law enforcement orders or even from Microsoft if they change their minds about keeping all content local and not using it for targeted advertising or training their AIs.
Microsoft says that Recall will not censor or delete information from the screenshots it takes, even if passwords or bank account details are visible on the screen.
In a blog post about the new functionality that will arrive with a new Surface Laptop next monthThe American company wrote: “Recall uses your personal semantic index, created and stored exclusively on your device.
“Your snapshots are yours; they stay locally on your computer. You can delete, edit, and time-lapse individual snapshots in Settings, or pause at any time directly from the taskbar icon on your taskbar.”
“You can also filter apps and websites so they’re never saved. You’re always in control of the privacy you can trust.”
Recall and a host of other AI features will be exclusive to Windows 11 running on so-called Copilot+ PCs, including the newly announced Surface Laptop 7th Edition, pictured above. MICROSOFT PRESS OFFICE
However, Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at software security firm ESET, said creating and storing more private data through the feature could be a tempting prospect for cybercriminals.
“Enabling a feature that has the ability to capture data on the screen not only offers even more data to the company behind the software, but also opens up another avenue for criminals to attack,” he said.
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“Although this feature is not turned on by default, users should note that it will allow any content to be analyzed by AI algorithms for a better experience.
“While this may yield better results, there is a balance to be struck between functionality and privacy, so users must be aware of the potential risks should sensitive data be compromised. Creating and storing more private data seems pointless when cybercriminals are constantly looking for any vulnerability they can exploit.”