Have you ever looked at a company’s soon-to-released product and wondered why? Why is this a product? What were they thinking? How many channels of bureaucracy did it go through and not fizzle out but make it to the market? You look at the product and after some time all your thoughts converge into one; whose idea was this?
This is how I feel about Microsoft Recall, an AI feature that comes as a part of Copilot +, a myriad of AI updates and capabilities that are now a part of Microsoft’s operating system. Now let me use Microsoft’s words to define what Recall is and it goes as follows; “Recall uses Copilot+ PC advanced processing capabilities to take images of your active screen every few seconds. The snapshots are encrypted and saved on your PC’s hard drive. You can use Recall to locate the content you have viewed on your PC using search or on a timeline bar that allows you to scroll through your snapshots. Once you find the snapshot that you were looking for in Recall, it will be analyzed and offer you options to interact with the content.
Now if you didn’t notice the glaring red flag that this is then it is great that you are reading this. Microsoft Recall is effectively a very bold privacy infringement wrapped up in AI pageantry and hype. The feature promises to furnish you with virtual photographic memory with regard to your device. Using some keywords related to something you were viewing or doing on your device, Recall will find said activity and show it to you thanks to the several screenshots it takes of the activities on your device.
Granted Microsoft says that all these screenshots will be captured, stored locally, and encrypted but with the prevalence of so many viruses on the Microsoft operating system and this sudden honey pot or treasure trove of data gold sitting locally on a user’s device, it stands to reason that these viruses would become more, intelligent. Ransomware I believe will be on the uptick and the main fact is that many users of these devices are not as knowledgeable about the workings of these devices like their creators think. I am very certain that said creators know this so why this product?
Let me ask a question. When have you ever or should I say how many times have you had this aching regret about not saving something you saw on your computer? A regret you feel so strongly that it results in you wishing that every moment on your device was captured and locked up somewhere on said device and when you input some words you can pull it up, regardless of the many glaring privacy concerns?
Microsoft Recall feels like an insensitive product made by people who know better or purport to know better but want to be seen as keeping up with a new revolutionary break in the industry. I agree that I am being very harsh in my judgment but a product like this being on the horizon of release a year after Microsoft sacks its AI Ethics and Society team does not seem like a mere coincidence to me.
We must hold these companies to greater standards and call out product problems. For me, the first step to fixing Recall would be to make it an opt-in product, not an opt-out one. How often have companies been told to clarify their data collection methods in short non-legal jargon so that users of their products will know what they are signing on to? How often have companies been warned against activating these new ‘products’ by default but rather allow users to opt-in after educating them on what the product is?
I will end my scathing review of this product here for now. I do admit that I may be too harsh or hasty, however for me the very first thing that comes to my mind when I see this product is; whose idea was this? What comes to your mind?
