Is Microsoft Spying🕵️ on You?

Photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash

The world of tech has become more like an episode of “Black Mirror” recently. 

Layoffs with no hope of rehire? Check.

The movie Her actually happening in real life? Check.

You might also be familiar with the idea that AI is coming to steal all of our jobs (or not). 

Now, just when you thought it safe to take your ramen break it seems Big Brother might be watching with Microsoft’s latest advanced feature — which might spell doom and gloom to software developers far and wide.

The Feature

Microsoft isn’t just scraping GitHub to train our AI replacements. They are now screenshotting your active windows every few seconds to unlock the ability to search through your past PC usage using AI.

Either of these things is potentially OK if you trust Microsoft not to misuse your information.

Like stealing private code from GitHub:

Oh.

A Privacy Nightmare

Let’s cut to the chase — having your PC constantly snapping screenshots of everything you do, raises serious privacy concerns. Even though Microsoft assures us that all data is stored locally and not sent to the cloud, it still feels like an intrusion and opens up risks to users. 

Putting all of your most private information into one database on your machine? Sounds rather like a massive target for any potential hacker. Imagine those screenshots of sensitive information like bank details and personal conversations representing a potential goldmine for scammers and script kiddies.

This is serious enough that the UK agency the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is investigating this feature and is calling into question the lack of safeguards in place to protect user privacy.

Can This Be Used Against Us

Look, we are software developers. I made a little program so my machine doesn’t “go to sleep” while I am working at home and broadcast to my boss that I’m away most of the time. 

Imagine you screenshot my machine and tell everyone I’m not working for most of the time; this would be worse than appearing to be away.

Sure, Microsoft say that you can simply delete screenshots manually but who wants to do that? The Recall feature is on by default, and how many have time to mess with these settings?

Big Brother

For those of us in the software development trenches, this feature feels particularly invasive. Imagine a day when your boss could ask to review your work output and include the Recall logs in your work hours.

Employers are happy to blur the lines between work and personal time as it gains them productivity, Recall threatens to erase the line entirely and force developers into a situation where thinking time becomes “why aren’t you working” time.

Tools used for micromanagement lead to a poor developer experience, and that can lead to further poor developer productivity. This isn’t just a breach of privacy — it’s a breach of trust. Employees need to know that their every move isn’t being monitored and logged.

The Genie is Out of the Bottle

Once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no way to put it back. This issue is, at it’s code, a trust issue.

While Microsoft insist they have no access to the data and it won’t train their AI I don’t trust them and I think they haven’t truly considered the size of the issue they are creating. 

If Microsoft is willing to scrape our code from GitHub to train AI, why should we trust them with a feature that records every action on our PCs? It’s not a huge leap to imagine a future where data from Recall is used to further train AI models, leading to even more sophisticated automation that could edge developers out of their jobs.

Can Microsoft really promise security that will mean our machines are safe from those who will use our data for nefarious use? Microsoft has very publically failed at security before, and I’m willing to bet will do so again.

Conclusion

Of all the companies we should not be in a position where we need to trust Microsoft with our most personal data and information.

We shouldn’t want to do it, and it shouldn’t mean that such a powerful and consequential feature is on by default. Give us a break, guys!