Privacy concerns with new Microsoft AI tool on by default

A new Microsoft feature is set to actively take a screenshot of what users are looking at every five seconds — triggering privacy concerns.

Microsoft’s last AI tool, named Recall, aims to help users scroll back in time on their computers.

It allowed users to glance back at the screenshots taken, and search for terms such as "green coat" or "purple PowerPoint slide" to retrieve webpages or documents which the user may have forgotten how to access.

Although the tool was marketed as secure — using encryption technology — and saved only on the specific device, big names in the industry have been quick to criticism. Tech mogul Elon Musk compared it to an episode of the dystopian series Black Mirror.

Joining Breakfast this morning, technology expert Danu Abeysuriya outlined many users’ concerns with the feature.

“Right now, it’s actually to do with Microsoft’s latest line of Surface computers. They’ve had declining sales for the last couple of years now so they’re trying to liven up the line and compete against Apple.”

Abeysuriya said in attempt to remedy the sales, Microsoft was going “very heavy” into AI by introducing specialised computer chips into the laptops to run AI workloads.

One of these features was Recall, the tool which was sparking concern.

Abeysuriya said the feature could be very useful for a variety of purposes.

“Most people spend about an hour searching for stuff on their computers. If you span that over say a work time through the year that’s about 200 to 300 hours that you might save by being able to search for stuff on your computer without having to be very specific.

“It’s a much more natural way to find things on your computer, rather than having to remember all the specific file names or all those things.”

Abeysuriya explained in a demonstration video of the feature, someone couldn’t remember a PowerPoint slide they were trying to find, but they remembered it had purple text.

So, instead of digging through countless files and slides, the user was simply able to type in a description of the powerpoint slide, and view it almost instantly.

He said other search terms could be used too, such as typing in ‘green coat’ to bring up an old webpage someone may have lost while shopping.

Despite the benefits, Abeysuriya said the primary concern about the feature is it is on by default.

“Opt-in would be better. So basically, being asked to turn it on.”

Abeysuriya said there’s also an additional the issue of longstanding consent, and if a user did decide to opt-in, it should be for periods of 15 minutes, an hour or even a day at a time. He said the how long the data was saved for was also a point of contention.

But he said this was not the first time Microsoft has faced backlash for developing features which sparked privacy concerns.

“When they launched the [Xbox 360], it came with an Xbox Kinect, which is a camera system. They said it was always on and it was transmitting to the cloud continuously, and oh boy did they hear about that.

“They ended up having to backtrack from that position and they ended up switching off all of the capabilities, and not even shipping the camera with the unit as they announced.”