Is your phone listening to you?

Life Technology
1

I know they data mine, learn what I like by what I click on and search.

But I notice when I say something, for example I was looking at an movie ad for project Gutenberg. I said project Gutenberg right before I open my phone to look at the ratings. As soon as I type “p” the top of my search list is project Gutenberg. It’s not the first time I noticed this.

2

Well it kind of has to listen to you all the time. Otherwise “Hey Siri” and “OK Google” would not work! But I don’t think they use the data for search suggestions. I think they use your location though, so if people around you searched for it, they will suggest it.

3

I get something weird. I was looking for PDF editors on line. I browsed some stores like Shareware on line. Then on many apps, related or unrelated i start getting adds for PDF editors.
It’s weird how my interest in a product seems to spread fast across many apps that use on line advertisements.

4

My phone would be so incredibly bored listening to me. The NSA would bug me saying “no” to my toddler 30 times in a row.

Okay, jokes aside, I have noticed this as well. I thought it might be the phone’s algorithm coming up with auto-fill terms that are somewhat related, even indirectly to previous searches. But it seems too on the nose. I thought this was too crazy to mention, so I’m glad you did as I really do think there’s something to this. I’m sure some subreddit has already done a deep dive on this.

5

I questioned asking this. I understand there’s different algorithms going on that does a pretty good job finding things related to sort of “guide” or push me.

But often times it would be something I can’t connect how they know would possibly almost know what I’m looking for.

6

Sometimes it’s not even like I say the words. Sometimes it seems like it reads my thoughts.

But then I sound like the homeless guy on the street corner ranting that the CIA put a microchip in his head. :man_shrugging:

7

all those free flu shots are not what you think they are, lol

8

Quick answer: no.

Considering the amount of data your phone, linked to your computer, can collect, they don’t need to listen to you. They know pretty well what you’re up to.

1 Like
9

Which is STILL very creepy

10

That makes little sense. If they listen to you, they’ll get additional verbal information which hasn’t been input into your phone. So they’ll be able to know more about what you’re up to.

It seems naive to suppose that in this age of verbal activation (Siri, Google), personal chat isn’t being made available for additional processing by third party apps.

1 Like
11

The IT companies claim that aren’t doing this but I heard they do analyse the info somehow when you allow the microphone access on apps. I’m always suspicious when apps continuously look for camera and microphone access.

1 Like
12

I’m no expert, but here’s a few things to consider:

  • from a legal standpoint I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between recording someone’s voice and recording someone’s browsing habits. You could say “there’s no difference, they just need to add it in the terms of use” and I’m sure you would be wrong. Pretty sure if google play would update their terms of use tomorrow to allow themselves to withdraw all the money from all their user’s bank account it wouldn’t go through legally, even if million of morons would click the “I agree” button without reading the terms of use.
  • from a software standpoint, audio is harder to process and weighs more compared to a browser’s history. It wouldn’t make sense to go through the process of constantly converting people’s words.
  • and again, they already got way more information on you that you can possibly imagine by just looking at your browsing habits and feeding it to data analysis.

That being said, just bumped into the following article:


which implies they don’t necessarily listen to what you say, but might take cues as for what you’re watching or where you are.

1 Like
13

It’s not the first time a company breached that with people. Taiwan’s military and intelligence agencies have banned xiaomi from being used by their personal and on base because they found some evidence of xiaomi having back door programs that can activate cameras, mics, Bluetooth which they were most concern about to steal info from what I was told.

I feel like google does this. I swear they can bring top results from things being said when I haven’t made searches and clicked on anything related.

14

There was a guy in Youtube tested it but using a computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBnDWSvaQ1I

15

Short answer for OP’s question is NO.

What you are experiencing is called “confirmation bias”.
You are impressed by how precise was this experience. However, have you thought about all the other times that they didn’t suggested what you were looking for? Sometimes even until you type the very last letter?
Our memory is selective, and we cannot take trust on that only…

As for the video above, another guy made a more methodological approach:
https://youtu.be/SmM9ch_oXA4

1 Like
16

I can perfectly give a testimony on this. Facebook does listen to your phone, how I don’t know.
The other day I was talking to my cousin at home, expressing my wish to learn playing a guitar and how much would a decent guitar cost to the minimum? To my surprise, the very next morning I was scrolling down my Facebook news feed and found sponsored ads from Guitar brands.
That was surprising and worrisome at the same time for me. There should be some privacy at least when you are not using the apps or services.

17

Did you use Facebook messenger or a facebook voice app?

18

Artificial intelligence is more complex. You may talk to your friend about a subject, then your friend Google’s for it or clicks on an ad, and then you get an ad for it. Or you may be both in the same location and they are Googling for something but you’re not, but Facebook or Google thinks you’re also interested.

Or if you type the word into a note or message to someone in an app or many different ways.