The new Windows 11 Recall feature works by automatically taking regular screenshots of everything on the PC, including websites and, potentially, your conversations. These screenshots are stored on your computer. It’s designed to help people quickly return to tasks they’ve been working on, but it also means that personal and sensitive data like texts could be saved without your knowledge. Once snapshots are stored, there’s no way for the sender to remove them from the recipient’s device, which puts your privacy at risk without your knowledge.

Imagine you send a text to a friend who has Recall enabled on their PC. Even though apps like Facebook Messenger, Signal, and WhatsApp let you unsend messages, if they’ve synced their messages to their computer, your message could be instantly captured and saved as a screenshot before you unsend it. Once saved, it’s no longer under your control and could stay on their device indefinitely.

With no way to remove these snapshots from someone else’s computer, it’s worth thinking twice about what you send and who might be quietly saving it.