I may have to drop my ‘Microsoft has no memory’ tagline. Below is from my latest Geek Guide page covering Microsoft 365 eDiscovery and compliance sources, applications, exceptions and coping strategies.
May 20, 2024 Microsoft announced a new generation of AI enabled Copilot+ PC‘s that would run preloaded AI models locally and provide extended AI functionality at the endpoint. For eDiscovery and compliance professionals, the key new functionality of Windows Copilot Runtime is called Recall. From the limited information available the functionality captures screenshots of webpages, documents and applications into a UserActivity local index/database. The Recall application supports search, timeline view, Screenray interaction, purge and restart of the logged session. The goal is to enable users to return to prior ‘sessions’ via search, filter or timeline navigation to resume work. I am sure that every eDiscovery/compliance professional immediately recognizes the potential for this information to reconstruct every minute of a witness/suspect’s day. Other Copilot functions will automatically OCR and extract content for search.
Recall screenshot per linked Microsoft article
Before you panic, Recall is ONLY available on the new generation of Copilot+ PC’s. The screenshots and UserActivity index/database is stored locally (no location given that I could find). By default the storage is limited to 10-15% of your total disk capability. That could still be months of screenshots and user history. I did not find any mentions of extending Purview access to Recall content, but if it is stored within the OneDrive synchronized folder it would be accessible to Purview, i.e. search, alerts, actions, holds and exports. I will not be surprised to see this functionality disabled by default in countries with strong privacy protections.
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