Commentary: Windows Recall sounds like a privacy nightmare – here’s why I’m worried

It all comes down to how much you trust or care to trust Microsoft and by proxy, Windows. The fact Windows 10/11 sets each single user with their own Advertiser ID as to create profiles for advertisers to target is too much and should not have been normalized. That is not even counting say, the annoying ads on the taskbar, the lock-screen and even when you may open your file manager. No one worries, while having their morning coffee on how they can increase their family’s share of targeted ads but if they do, they can rest assured knowing Microsoft has been diligently doing their part and they have the court cases to prove it. Apple is also not any better, either.

Plus, these are all opt-out options, if at all, rather than opt-in and that’s the icing on the cake. Anyone in Marketing knows MS is counting on a large enough percentage of end-users to leave them on. You have to give them credit for playing the law of large numbers, well.

When looking at Windows 11’s new Recall feature, take into consideration the many variables that could come into play, like people or strangers going though your PC, getting it stolen, losing your laptop, using an employers PC or merely using a public PC on top of other possible unknown variables. Many in the industry would adhere to the notion that Microsoft may opt to give the perception of choice, and despite the ever growing backlash against, it is impossible to deny how driven they are to have this tool included in the OS. Thus, knowing Microsoft’s history, legal and otherwise, one would be wise to keep an eye on the developing proceedings.

Microsoft’s claim is that their Recall feature is opt-in and that your recorded usage data does not leave your device. Since reasonably, we all know Microsoft has never done anything underhanded, shady, lied or dove into the foray of criminality which they then had to pay billions in fines to make it go away in exchange to then be able to claim, at least in press releases, that no fault was ever committed. Nope. Never.

As a longtime Linux user, the notion of having my OS constantly recording everything I do, is something that as a kid would have thought only acceptable in a dystopian, or late-stage capitalism society where people have grown apathetic or too broken for it to matter or care. Especially odd when contrasted with how much we use and depend on computers today on the daily.

In our case, it seems like everything today is being sold as a set of cool and enhanced conveniences. Why remember something, anything, ever, when Microsoft can record you doing it? Many films portray these type of societies –China is already closer with their State controlled-proxy monopolies along with their Social Credit Scores– and we have slowly but steadily been heading in that general direction ourselves since the early 2000’s. Windows 10 was agreed by most people in Cyber Security circles to be a privacy nightmare, it seems Windows 11 will continue on that proud tradition.