NAVIGATING NEW FRONTIERS: MICROSOFT'S RECALL FEATURE AND ITS CYBERSECURITY MAZE

Microsoft is back, with another new-and-improved feature-set to fundamentally change the way users will interact with their PCs in the digital age. ‘Recall’ is an AI-driven tool that can search and recover your digital past, completely changing the way we work. But here come the cybersecurity experts to warn us. Allow us to take you into just a small part of Recall.

UNPACKING MICROSOFT'S RECALL: A SYNOPSIS

At its most basic, Recall by Microsoft is about transforming the user experience by embedding AI ‘deeply into the operating system’. Utilising screenshots taken at regular intervals, Recall creates a ‘seamless and explorable timeline of your PC use’. Natural language processing through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology lets users search for items by description. The experience is meant to be as natural as possible: ‘You want to be able look and explore your own digital history of browsing,’ the company proclaims.

RISING SECURITY ALARMS: AN EXPERT INSIGHT

Kevin Beaumont, a well-known cybersecurity consultant, has called out Microsoft multiple times about the security problems with Recall. The feature uses a plaintext database to store the underlying information designed to help you remember, making it a ‘disaster waiting to happen’, Beaumont told me. Microsoft is just ‘leaking users’ data for malicious actors to exploit, and all they need is access to the internet’, Beaumont explained to me. He discovered that he could easily retrieve the data from the database using basic tools without any special permissions.

THE PRIVACY PANORAMA: CONCERNS AND CONSIDERATIONS

The advent of Recall has also raised questions about the role of privacy, with critics singling out Microsoft’s choice to activate the feature during setup as a sticking point. Such defaults essentially prevent any meaningful measure of user consent. Considering Recall’s lack of content moderation, this could be problematic in a technology that captures pretty much anything entering a conversation between the paring device, whether it is a password, personal data or otherwise. Microsoft has since insisted that content is filtered through privacy controls at both user and service levels, but uncertainty remains over how effective these protections might be.

MICROSOFT RECALL: TECHNICAL TITBITS

To get it, you need a PC with 16 GB of RAM, 8 logical processors, and 256 GB of storage to house the feature (which itself will require 50 GB of space for optimal use), plus some keyboard shortcuts Microsoft has included to help you get around in the Recall timeline. This is not an old-fashioned computer.

RESPONDING TO THE BACKLASH: MICROSOFT'S STANCE

In response to these concerns, Microsoft has been loud and clear in its commitment to user security and privacy. The data remains local to the user’s device, and is stored locally in an encrypted form so that others cannot access it, they say. The fact that Recall is voluntary also ‘reassures users that they are in control of each entry in their memory’, and that Cortana doesn’t ‘take control of our memories’. In the face of this uncertain future, it’s not clear when a satisfactory answer to the malware problem that Greenaway et al highlight will emerge. But I will be keen to learn more about how these engineers plan to improve protections.

CONCLUSION: A CALL FOR VIGILANCE

Although Microsoft is on the cusp of releasing Recall, the company is not the only one keen to roll out a functionality like this. While a lot of people might be excited, there are also plenty of valid and legitimate cybersecurity and privacy issues to get nervous about. When Microsoft initiates such cutting-edge functionality and sets the pace on what to expect next from big tech, it should proceed with caution. Its creations should operate safely and securely. Microsoft should make sure that its accrued technologies are compliant and private by default at every step. And, most of all, Microsoft should support its customers in having a positive and impactful experience with these technologies. The onus is on Microsoft to get ahead of these challenges in order to be able to defend its customers and assert itself as the kind of company that can set positive standards for responsible technology use.

ABOUT MICROSOFT

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. Hop on a computer anywhere in the world and there’s a good chance that the hardware and software driving the experience came from Microsoft, the US software giant and world leader in software, services, devices and solutions. The company, which started in a garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is currently headquartered in Redmond, Washington State, makes products that remain crucial to the way the world works. From desktop operating systems like Windows to productivity suites such as Office, Microsoft offers the tools that power businesses and homes. The company’s tightly aligned teams of engineers develop the technology to meet current and future needs – and create a safe, private and delightful experience for every person and every organisation on the planet.