Microsoft Recall — the company’s upcoming feature for Copilot+ PCs — is facing yet another delay. The Redmond company was expected to roll out its Recall feature to Windows Insiders last month. However, it is unlikely to be available for another couple of months, according to the company. The feature is designed to run on Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs and captures screenshots of user activity, and it has faced a lot of criticism since it was first announced, due to privacy and security concerns.
Senior Product Manager Brandon LeBlanc confirmed to The Verge that the Recall feature will only roll out to Windows Insiders program members by December. “To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we’re taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders,” the executive told the publication.
What is Microsoft’s Recall Feature?
Originally announced in May, the new Recall feature is an AI feature designed to run only on Copilot+ PCs. It can help users find things on their computer by taking screenshots of all their activities and allowing them to search the contents of that screenshot at a later date. The announcement of the feature was met with intense criticism from privacy advocates and security experts, who pointed out several flaws with the initial version of Recall.
After the backlash, Microsoft halted its plans to roll out Recall to Windows Insiders testers in June and revealed that it would arrive in October instead. Since then, the company has announced several sweeping changes to the Recall feature that are designed to improve its security.
For example, Recall for Windows will now store encrypted data, and the encryption keys are protected via the CPU’s trusted platform module (TPM). Microsoft says that the feature can only be used inside a secure environment, in order to protect user data from being accessed by other users.
Microsoft has also made some changes to Recall, in order to protect user data from being compromised by malware — the feature will include anti-hammering and rate limiting measures. Meanwhile, access to Recall and the feature’s settings can only be unlocked using Windows Hello authentication, with a PIN as a fallback method.
The company has also clarified that Recall will be opt-in for all users with a Copilot+ PC and that it can be completely removed. If the feature is rolled out to Windows Insiders by December, we can expect Microsoft to finally release it for all Copilot+ PC owners over the next year.