Microsoft's plans to introduce an AI-powered "Recall" feature in its Copilot+ PCs lineup has evoked considerable privacy concerns. But the extent to which these concerns are fully justified remains a somewhat open question at the moment. Recall is technology that Microsoft has described as enabling users to easily find and remember whatever they might have seen on their PC.

It works by taking periodic snapshots of a user's screen, analyzing those images, and storing them in a way that lets the user to search for things they might have seen in apps, websites, documents, and images using natural language. As Microsoft explains it, "With Recall, you can access virtually what you have seen or done on your PC in a way that feels like having photographic memory." Copilot+ PCs will organize information based on relationships and associations unique to each user, according to the company.

"This helps you remember things you may have forgotten so you can find what you’re looking for quickly and intuitively by simply using the cues you remember." Default configurations of Copilot+ PCs will come with enough storage to store up to three months' worth of snapshots, with the option to increase that allocation. In introducing the technology, Microsoft pointed to several measures the company says it has implemented to protect user privacy and security .

Recall will store all data it captures only locally on the user's Copilot+ PC, in fully encrypted fashion. It won't save audio or continuo.