News
Windows Recall To Finally See Daylight in October Preview
- By Chris Paoli
- August 26, 2024
After postponing the public debut of its controversial Windows Recall AI feature, Microsoft is has finally settled on releasing it as a broad preview in October.
"With a commitment to delivering a trustworthy and secure Recall (preview) experience on Copilot+ PCs for customers, we're sharing an update that Recall will be available to Windows Insiders starting in October," Microsoft said in an update last week.
The company first unveiled Recall during May's Build conference, describing it as a background Windows service that continuously captures screenshots of user activity. It then scans these images to extract text from them and saves them to a searchable database on the user's PC. The purpose is to provide users with more personalized and specific responses to Copilot queries.
The feature was met with immediate wariness from the IT security community over its potential privacy risks. Security expert Kevin Beaumont posted an analysis shortly after the announcement showing how attackers could gain access to the saved personal database with a code injection attack.
In response, Microsoft made the Recall preview accessible via opt-in only. Furthermore, Microsoft enhanced Recall's security capabilities with "just in time" decryption through Windows Hello Sign-In Security (ESS).
After persistent criticism, however, Microsoft again changed course in June, pulling access to the preview and alerting the public that Recall wouldn't be available until it had gone through additional development, calling the decision "rooted in our commitment to providing a trusted, secure and robust experience for all customers."
Presumably, those prerequisites have been met, and Recall is now nearly ready for a wider audience.
"Security continues to be our top priority," said Microsoft, "and when Recall is available for Windows Insiders in October we will publish a blog with more details."