Microsoft says it has “listened to feedback” following a privacy row over a new tool which takes regular screenshots of users’ activity.

It was labelled a potential “privacy nightmare” by critics when it was unveiled in May 2024 - prompting the tech giant to postpone its release. It now plans to relaunch the artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool in November on its new CoPilot+ computers.

[…]

When it initially announced the tool at its developer conference in May, Microsoft said it used AI “to make it possible to access virtually anything you have ever seen on your PC”, and likened it to having photographic memory. It said Recall could search through a users’ past activity, including their files, photos, emails and browsing history.

[…]

But critics quickly raised concerns, given the quantity of sensitive data the system would harvest, with one expert labelling it a potential “privacy nightmare."

[…]

[Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows and devices says] that “Windows offers tools to help you control your privacy and customise what gets saved for you to find later”.

However a technical blog about it states that “diagnostic data” from the tool may be shared with the firm depending on individual privacy settings.

[Microsoft says in a blog post that users can remove Recall entirely by using the optional features settings in Windows.]

  • Gamers_mate@beehaw.org
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    3 months ago

    Would games with anticheat work in a windows 10 vm? I am not interested in games that go out of their way to not work in wine but if it works in a vm of windows 10 you might be able to use that for gaming and whatever host os for your web browser emails etc.