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.

Give me a way to physically shut off the microphone (like a camera shield on business laptops), then we will talk.

Strange topics had popped up in my Google feed after l spoke to someone about something I’ve never googled before

The worst part is that you can get targeted by advertisements recorded by the other partys phone. Once upon a time, before I started blocking spotify ads, the ads I got were always very generic (fast food, spotify premium, espresso house etc.), but one time after visiting my cousin and mentioning that I had a headache, I was bombarded with only ads for pain killers for the full three hour drive home the day after.

Creepy AF.