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coolgopher [soylentnews.org] writes:

As reported by https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/windows-recall-sounds-like-a-privacy-nightmare-heres-why-im-worried/ar-BB1mNGFI [msn.com] , Microsoft is introducing a new "feature" in Windows 11:

If you haven't read about it yet, Recall is an AI feature coming to Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs. It's designed to let you go back in time on your computer by "taking images of your active screen every few seconds" and analyzing them with AI, according to Microsoft's Recall FAQs. If anyone other than you gets access to that Recall data, it could be disastrous.

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On the surface, this sounds like a cool feature, but that paranoid privacy purist in the back of my mind is burying his face in a pillow and screaming. Imagine if almost everything you had done for the past three months was recorded for anyone with access to your computer to see. Well, if you use Recall, you won't have to imagine.

That might seem like an overreaction, but let me explain: Recall is taking screenshots every few seconds and storing them on your device. Adding encryption into the mix, that's an enormous amount of bloaty visual data that will show almost everything you've been doing on your computer during that period.

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But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft openly admits that Recall will be taking screenshots of your passwords and private data:

"Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. That data may be in snapshots that are stored on your device, especially when sites do not follow standard internet protocols like cloaking password entry."

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Arguably, the worst part about this is that it will be on by default once you activate your device. Microsoft states: 

        On by default

A user going by the name of "Alex von Kitchen" summarised the issues quite well: https://aus.social/@Dangerous_beans/112477798730314983 [aus.social]

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