… No, but the truth is even scarier
Most of us experienced it before. You talked about something out loud, only for ads to appear on Facebook, Instagram or the web browser the day or even minutes after. It feels like your phone is monitoring your conversation and shows you the corresponding ads.
Could that be true?
Well, technically it is possible for apps and phones to secretly observe your microphone recordings. Many people do believe the modern myth and are certain that some personal ads can only come from bugging. Especially Facebook seems to be the centre of accusations.
But, all-clear. According to Facebook’s official statement in June 2016: „Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed“. So far, researchers have failed to find evidence against this statement (Fowler, 2019).
If Facebook does not listen – how do they know?
Well, Facebook does not need to spy on our conversations, because it already has all the data it needs to propose targeted advertising. In fact, the data we voluntarily share with Facebook (and many other apps) is more than sufficient, even without accessing our microphones (Here you can find out what Facebook knows about you).
There are many ways for Facebook to target us based on our released data, demographics and location. Also, many other websites or apps use Facebook plugins, login and widgets. With this Facebook can collect data on our web journey – what items we look at, what we click on, how much time we are spending reading, what products we put in our shopping cart, etc. Further, Facebook’s algorithm determines that if a friend with similar characteristics likes something, we might be equally interested in the product. Those tracking methods are so precise, that we have the impression that our phone is listening.
But, is your phone still snooping?
Indeed, a study of Northeastern University had some surprising and disturbing findings when investigating 17,260 popular Android apps. The researchers reveal several alarming privacy risks in the Android app ecosystem. According to the study, several apps were taking screenshots or recording videos of smartphone activity and shared that data with third parties in unexpected ways, without the permission of the user (Choffnes et al., 2018). Protecting us against this kind of spying seems impossible.
No, our phones are not listening to our conversations. But isn’t the truth even more disturbing?
What do you think? Did you also already have the feeling your phone was secretly snooping on you for advertising purposes? Do you mind?
Bibliography:
Choffnes, D., Lindorfer, M., Pan, E., Ren, J. & Wilson, C. (2018). Panoptispy: Characterizing Audio and Video Exfiltration from Android Applications. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2018. 18 (4): 1–18.
Facebook. (2016). Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone for ads or news feed stories. [online] Facebook Newsroom. Available at: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/facebook-does-not-use-your-phones-microphone-for-ads-or-news-feed-stories/ [Accessed 29.09.2019].
Fowler, B. (2019). Is Your Smartphone Secretly Listening to You? It’s technically possible, but researchers and security experts say the answer is likely no. [online] Consumerreports.org. Available at: https://www.consumerreports.org/smartphones/is-your-smartphone-secretly-listening-to-you/ [Accessed 01.10.2019].
Graham, J. (2019). Is Facebook listening to me? Why those ads appear after you talk about things. [online] USAtoday.com. Available at: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2019/06/27/does-facebook-listen-to-your-conversations/1478468001/ [Accessed 01.10.2019].
Tiffany, K. (2018). The perennial debate about whether your phone is secretly listening to you, explained. [online] Vox.com. Available at: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/28/18158968/facebook-microphone-tapping-recording-instagram-ads [Accessed 30.09.2019].
