Signal blocks Microsoft’s Recall feature that captures screenshots of your chats

Signal

Popular messaging app Signal is touted for its privacy features and is a boon for those who are very conscious of their privacy. The cross-platform app offers end-to-end encryption (E2EE) and has millions of active users all over the globe on multiple platforms. Now, the messaging app is taking a stand against Microsoft’s controversial Recall feature on Windows 11, which captures screen content for AI-assisted recall.

In a detailed blog post, Signal has announced that its Signal Desktop app for Windows will block Windows Recall by default through a new Screen Security setting. The company suggests that this new feature is designed to protect users’ privacy, with Recall capturing screenshots of a Windows system continuously to remember a user’s activities, so that they can scroll back in time to remember what they were looking at.

Currently, Microsoft has made the Recall feature opt-in on Windows 11 and has also added a way to pause it anytime. However, despite these changes, the feature still captures content that may be sensitive for a user. Therefore, the developers of apps like Signal have always requested that they have the necessary tools and options at their disposal to reject granting OS-level AI systems access to any sensitive information.

For those unaware, Screen Security is based on Digital Rights Management (DRM), which is used to protect copyrighted digital content from unauthorized use, and, for instance, also makes it harder for users to screenshot Netflix content.