The UK data watchdog says it is "making enquiries with Microsoft" over a new feature that can take screenshots of your laptop every few seconds.

Microsoft says Recall, which will store encrypted snapshots locally on your computer, is exclusive to its forthcoming Copilot+ PCs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwwqp6nx14o

In my experience, most people nowadays don't mind being spied on at all. For example, a friend of mine has her phone set up to track her every move so that it can tell her how many steps she's done every day. I can't imagine how that information could be so valuable for one's fitness routines that it would justify being spied on wherever you go.

Apparently there's an app now called Find My Friends that will show you at any moment of the day where each of them is. Of course they have to consent to being tracked in this way but the amazing thing is that lots of young people do consent to that. And of course they will always know where you are. And no one sees that as in any way creepy.

"You are the product"

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aaa... what do you mean "again"?
I think might be misleading, there might be some inocent ppl imagining it has stopped for even a second at some point and now, again )

I agree. Don't you have to create an account with M$ just to use their OS? And doesn't it automatically load updates for you, so knows what you have on your box? I Seems I recall that they are already tracking you out of the box with telemetry too. This copilot thing does seem much worst in my mind as everything you do is 'tracked for big brother to sort through.

You don't need an MS account for Windows 10, but they have made it as awkward as possible to avoid. I usually set the machines up offline, as if you connect them to the LAN, with a route out to the web, it will try to force you onto an MS account. Not sure about 11, I'm avoiding that one for as long as possible.

The spying is no surprise, but in this case it's MS' "AI" product that's involved.

What I find utterly weird is that most desktop/laptop users still use Windows. In spite of the spying and built-in advertisements, the compulsory extended updates, and (of course) the lousy security.

The Linux desktop community remains "we few, we happy few". I wonder why.

You'd think it would be a no brainer to look elsewhere if privacy is a concern! But the way I see it, most people go the 'easy' low route and go with what is given/spoon fed. You know, it takes 'energy/work' to reload your laptop/desktop with a better OS, especially if not familiar with it or even aware of better alternates out there. And you also 'might' have to learn something .

Guilty as charged. Up until a while ago I did have a Windows 11 laptop. I liked Windows for light gaming. Now that unit is running Linux. I just ordered a refurbished Win 10 laptop(an i7 Dell latitude with 16 GB RAM) for my wife as her aging T420 Thinkpad(Slackware) is slowly failing. I'll be blowing out the Windows install in favour of Linux. No Windows on my LAN.

The average computer user is not interested in how their PC works, only that it does. They just want to fire-up Netflix and Youtube without a lot of fuss. They're unaware that they can be targeted by spyware, malware, and ransomeware.
It's very good to be Linux only(one BSD partition) again.

Extract from the link posted by hazel:
https://www.techradar.com/computing/...why-im-worried

Exactly... Microsoft have been spying on you since Windows 98.

Er?? I used to use Windows 98 and I actually liked it. How were they spying on me then?

I'm not entirely sure how liking Windows 98, automatically equates to it not spying on you?

However, while MS may have been collecting data before Windows 8.x/10/11, it's those OS which truly became intrusive surveillance tools, with the level of intrusiveness steadily increasing as newer versions are released.