Do our phones listen to our conversations? The answer is complicated.

https://lemmy.world/post/2347399

Do our phones listen to our conversations? The answer is complicated. - Lemmy.world

Our mobile devices listen to and collect a significant amount of data on us, even without using our microphones.

I don’t know why people keep thinking that phones are listening in on every conversation just so they can advertise ‘Volvo’ at you.

  • they don’t need to - we give them loads of data voluntarily based on location data, what we search for, things we buy, things we ‘like’ on social media…

  • they’d be stung for huge fines of caught doing it.

  • it’d take enormous storage and processing power to manage all that data.

  • Just think about how many things you talk about every day that you’ve never then seen an advert for (confirmation bias)

  • my Google Home can’t understand me when I’m actually talking directly at it asking it a question, so the idea it can seripticiously pick out words while listening through my pocket is implausible.

Dude my phone will ever now then turn on and say “I didn’t understand you” meaning something or someone turned on the mic to listen.
That happens when it mis-hears a trigger word. You can enable and audible ‘ping’ noise to play when you activate Google Assistant. It’s in the accessibility settings. Worth doing so you know when it’s actually been triggered.