Microsoft works to make Recall “secure and trusted” after security complaints.
The Recall feature provides a timeline of screenshots and a searchable database of text, thoroughly tracking everything about a person’s PC usage. Credit: Microsoft
When Microsoft launched its Copilot+ AI PC initiative over the summer, one of the flagship features was Recall, a feature that would log months’ worth of your PC usage, with the stated goal of helping you remember things you did and find them again. But if you’ve heard of Recall, it’s probably because of the problems that surfaced in preview builds of Windows before the feature could launch: It stored all of its data in plaintext, and it was relatively trivial for other users on the PC (or for malicious software) to access the database and screenshots, potentially exposing huge amounts of user data.
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Microsoft was supposed to launch Recall over the summer but delayed the feature to rework it. The company went into detail on the new version of Recall’s security protections in late September, declaring that a preview would be ready in time for Windows Insider Program testers in October. Now that we’re past October, Microsoft has officially announced that the Recall preview is being delayed yet again and that it will begin rolling out to testers in December.
“We are committed to delivering a secure and trusted experience with Recall. To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we’re taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders,” said Microsoft Windows Insider Senior Program Manager Brandon LeBlanc in a statement provided to The Verge.
LeBlanc didn’t offer additional details on the latest Recall delay or make any new announcements about other security precautions Microsoft is taking with the feature. The company’s September blog post detailed how data was being protected using Windows’ Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) features and Windows Hello authentication and reiterated that Recall will be opt-in by default and that it will be fully removable for Windows users who aren’t interested in using it.
When it does start to roll out, Recall will still require a Copilot+ PC, which gets some AI-related features not available to typical Windows 11 PCs. To meet the Copilot+ requirements, PCs must have at least 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, plus a neural processing unit (NPU) that can perform at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). Users will also need their PCs to be enrolled in the Windows Insider Program; we have no idea when non-Windows Insider PCs will start getting Recall, though at this point, it seems likely it won’t be until sometime in 2025.
