Imagine if your computer constantly was taking screenshots of your activity…

Not to worry, because Microsoft has a beta feature called Recall. Here is what it does in a nutshell:

If you opt in to the feature, then as you use your PC, a snapshot of your active screen will be saved every few seconds and when the content of your active window changes. Snapshots are also protected with Windows Hello, so that you are the only signed in user can access Recall content. Recall allows you to search for content, including both images and text, using the clues you remember. Trying to remember the name of the sustainable restaurant you saw last week? Just ask Recall and it retrieves both text and visual matches for your search, automatically sorted by how closely the results match your search. Recall can even jump back into the content you saw.

How safe is it?

To use Recall you need to opt in to saving snapshots, which are screenshots of your activity. Snapshots and the contextual information derived from them are saved and encrypted to your local hard drive. Recall does not share snapshots or associated data with Microsoft or third parties, nor is it shared between different Windows users on the same device. Windows will ask for your permission before saving snapshots. You are always in control, and you can delete snapshots, pause or turn them off at any time. Any future options for the user to share data will require fully informed explicit action by the user.

Do we really need our computer to constantly take screenshots of our online activity? Sounds overboard, even if the information is encrypted locally. I know that if Apple were to do something like this for the Mac, I would keep it disabled. Thankfully this feature is an opt-in feature for Windows users.

Since it is still in beta, there are still lots of security risks since Recall has trouble discerning sensitive websites and screenshots sensitive information.