Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia
Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia
Here's how I got to bottom of the
ads-coinciding-with-conversations mystery.
By Sam Nichols Jun 3 2018, 11:23pm
A couple years ago, something strange happened. A friend
and I were sitting at a bar, iPhones in pockets, discussing our recent trips in
Japan and how we’d like to go back. The very next day, we both received pop-up
ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to Tokyo. It seemed like just a spooky
coincidence, but then everyone seems to have a story about their smartphone
listening to them. So is this just paranoia, or are our smartphones actually
listening?
According to Dr. Peter Hannay—The senior security
consultant for cybersecurity firm Asterisk, and former lecturer and researcher
at Edith Cowan University—the short answer is yes, but perhaps in a way that's
not as diabolical as it sounds.
For your smartphone to actually pay attention and record
your conversation, there needs to be a trigger, such as when you say “hey Siri”
or “okay Google.” In the absence of these triggers, any data you provide is
only processed within your own phone. This might not seem a cause for alarm,
but any third party applications you have on your phone—like Facebook for
example—still have access to this “non-triggered” data. And whether or not they
use this data is really up to them.
Whispering some sweet nothings to my phone
“From time to
time, snippets of audio do go back to [other apps like Facebook’s] servers but
there’s no official understanding what the triggers for that are,” explains
Peter. “Whether it’s timing or location-based or usage of certain functions,
[apps] are certainly pulling those microphone permissions and using those
periodically. All the internals of the applications send this data in encrypted
form, so it’s very difficult to define the exact trigger.”
He goes on to explain that apps like Facebook or Instagram
could have thousands of triggers. An ordinary conversation with a friend about
needing a new pair of jeans could be enough to activate it. Although, the key
word here is “could,” because although the technology is there, companies like
Facebook vehemently deny listening to our conversations.
“Seeing Google is open about it, I would personally
assume the other companies are doing the same.” Peter tells me. “Really,
there’s no reason they wouldn’t be. It makes good sense from a marketing
standpoint, and their end-use agreements and the law both allow it, so I would
assume they’re doing it, but there’s no way to be sure.”
With this in mind, I decided to try an experiment. Twice
a day for five days, I tried saying a bunch of phrases that could theoretically
be used as triggers. Phrases like I’m thinking about going back to uni and I
need some cheap shirts for work. Then I carefully monitored the sponsored posts
on Facebook for any changes.
The changes came literally overnight. Suddenly I was
being told mid-semester courses at various universities, and how certain brands
were offering cheap clothing. A private conversation with a friend about how
I’d run out of data led to an ad about cheap 20 GB data plans. And although
they were all good deals, the whole thing was eye-opening and utterly
terrifying.
Peter told me that although no data is guaranteed to be
safe for perpetuity, he assured me that in 2018 no company is selling their
data directly to advertisers. But as we all know, advertisers don’t need our
data for us to see their ads.
“Rather than saying here’s a list of people who followed
your demographic, they say Why don’t you give me some money, and I’ll make that
demographic or those who are interested in this will see it. If they let that
information out into the wild, they’ll lose that exclusive access to it, so
they’re going to try to keep it as secret as possible.
Peter went on to say that just because tech companies
value our data, it doesn’t keep it safe from governmental agencies. As most
tech companies are based in the US, the NSA or perhaps the CIA can potentially
have your information disclosed to them, whether it’s legal in your home
country or not.
So yes, our phones are listening to us and anything we
say around our phones could potentially be used against us. But, according to
Peter at least, it’s not something most people should be scared of.
Because unless you’re a journalist, a lawyer, or have
some kind of role with sensitive information, the access of your data is only
really going to advertisers. If you’re like everyone else, living a really
normal life, and talking to your friends about flying to Japan, then it’s
really not that different to advertisers looking at your browsing history.
“It’s just an extension from what advertising used to be
on television,” says Peter. Only instead of prime time audiences, they’re now
tracking web-browsing habits. It’s not ideal, but I don’t think it poses an
immediate threat to most people.”
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