Microsoft delays Recall launch until December

Controversial AI ‘helper’ put back another month

Microsoft has again delayed the launch of its controversial Copilot+ Recall feature for Copilot PCs.

In a post on its Windows Experience blog, Microsoft said it was taking “additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders. Recall will now be available for preview with Windows Insiders on Copilot+ PCs by December.”

The statement marks the second delay in the period of a month. Originally expected to debut on PCs and laptops with advanced AI-capable chips in June, last month Microsoft announced that Recall would be released to Windows Insiders in November, as it added improved security measures including better data encryption and access controls. This has now been put back to December.

The company has not given a reason for the further delay, other than to point readers to another blog post which contains updated architecture diagrams concerning the user’s ability to opt-out.

Recall captures screenshots of a user's screen every few seconds and stores them locally. It is intended to allow users to easily keep track of what they’ve been working on, according to Microsoft.

When Recall was first announced back in May the feature was opt-out, switched on by default. In addition, security researchers found that the data scooped up by Recall was only weakly encrypted, meaning that sensitive data was vulnerable to malware attacks.

Following a backlash, in June Microsoft overhauled Recall, delaying the launch, making it opt-in and giving users more control over whether they want their screens constantly monitored and analysed by AI.

It appears the company has now decided it needs more times to get the privacy and security aspects right, and to avoid any more bad publicity.

Commenting on Mastodon, security researcher Kevin Beaumont, who first called out the security problems with the original design said: “Microsoft have recalled Recall again. It still hasn't even made it to Insider preview yet, that's been delayed too, now in December. Good, by the way. They should take the time to get it right.”