Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The Wiretap is your weekly digest of cybersecurity, internet privacy and surveillance news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here . Microsoft's new Windows 11 feature is designed to help users recall what they researched, but it's come with some privacy and security concerns.
(Photo by Jeenah Moon/Getty Images) Last week, Microsoft announced a new feature in Windows 11: Recall. This enables users to always find a way back to information they’d previously reviewed by taking screenshots of everything happening on the computer every few seconds. Microsoft’s AI then makes all the information within those screenshots searchable and accessible for three months.
Privacy activists were alarmed by the announcement. The immediate fear was that Microsoft would have access to users’ activity, but CEO Satya Nadella comforted worried customers by claiming data is both encrypted and only stored on the device, without being transmitted anywhere else. Those assurances didn’t halt criticisms of the feature.
Another major concern is that if a hacker gained access to a Windows 11 device, they would be able to go straight to Recall to get a precise history of what a user has been doing. As one critic put it, the feature is akin to a keylogger “baked into Windows.” The U.
K.’s privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, is already asking Microsoft about Recall and its promises to ensure user data is safe. “We exp.
