Is my phone listening to me all the time?
We have recently been complaining more and more that other people have stopped listening to us attentively and hearing as a result. Sometimes we can witness how a girl is yelling, appealing to her boyfriend: “You are not listening to me at all!” Perhaps, it is true concerning the guy. However, you can be assured that your favorite smartphone which is about 15 hours in your hands every day listens to you sometimes or all the time. It has been already proved that there is no complete privacy on the Internet. All these advertisements that pop up on social media by chance are all intentional. So scared that are up to throw your new iPhone 11 Pro out the window? Stress less and read on how to identify bugging and protect yourself at least a little.
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How to know that your phone is listening to you?
Our smartphones are a mine of personal information that we trust in private and business conversations, photos, videos, feelings, secrets, and other files that are not intended for everybody to know. However, we should not be so gullible, and keep an eye out.
So, what are the main signs to find out that your phone is listening to you or, God forbid, is being tapped by special services, government or “advertising spies”?
- Pay attention to the background noise when you are on the phone. Various clicks, echoes, hum, and interferences are the first symptoms that you are not only two in the conversation. It can be a problem of poor communication quality but not only. If you have noticed some suspicious sounds several times, check your device for a “wiretapping”.
- Battery depletion can also indicate the presence of malware on your smartphone. If the battery started to discharge faster than usual, it can be “a warning bell” that your phone’s microphone works constantly and records conversations. The capacity of your battery decreases with time, and it’s quite natural. However, if your phone is new, the settings show the maximum capacity of your battery but you still need to charge it every three hours, – it means there is something else that consumes the battery power.
- Advertisements haunt us everywhere online. There are lots of mechanisms such as remarketing, Facebook pixel, context advertising that can easily reach us if we were already interested in their goods but didn’t make a purchase, searched for something on a specific request or are just the target group of a product or service. But how to react if you didn’t search for something on the Internet and were just discussing it out loud and after a while the advert of this very “something” popped up on Facebook, Google, Instagram? If you notice such coincidences very often, you were likely to fall into the trap of the advertiser’s schemes.
Pay attention: All large companies categorically reject any accusations of wiretapping and assure that they do not collect any information about the user for advertising or for any other purposes through the recording of voice. The representatives of Facebook also said that advertising is based only on information that users share on a social network, as well as on their searches on the Internet.
- Strange activity of your smartphone. If you don’t use it but the backlight suddenly lights up or the phone reboots by itself, it is advisable to check for third-party programs. These signs may mean that someone is remotely operating your phone without your knowledge.
- Excessive consumption of Internet traffic. Fortunately, we have an opportunity to track the amount of data consumed. If it goes off scale, especially when you were not very active, that’s strange. Check each application on your smartphone, and find out where gigabytes are leaking.
Basically, most of the suspicions arise precisely because of the popping-up of advertisements for those products that we did not look for, but only talked about them with someone. On one hand, this may really be just targeting, based on an in-depth study of our behavior on the Internet. On the other hand, applications listen to us and send information to developers.
Real-life wiretapping stories
Some people learned to ignore advertisements on the Internet, switching on “banner blindness” everywhere, when others are actively trying to figure out the reason for how “invisible Internet geniuses” guess to show so relevant ads. Here are some real stories to confirm that it’s not only about collecting information on interests or location, but it’s also about penetration into personal space offline. These people are convinced that their phones listened to them, and sent fragments of audio data to some servers.
“While walking around the park, my boyfriend paid attention to the newly opened museum and offer to visit it, but I didn’t want to. On the way home, we were discussing what kind of exhibition could be there, what exhibits could be displayed. Having returned home, we noticed that Instagram started to show the adverts about this very museum, although this had never happened before!”
“Having studied a lot of information about wiretapping the smartphones, I decided to test it on myself to completely assure how true it is. During a week, I uttered twice a day some phrases that could theoretically be triggers. “I’m going to Spain next month”, “I need to book an apartment in Barcelona”, “How to get from the airport to the city center in Barcelona?” Suddenly, social media began to offer taxi services in Spain, hotels in Barcelona, and all that jazz”.
“After a voice call with my friend on WhatsApp, I came across an ad on Facebook from Tiffany & Co advertising new bracelets. We were discussing the birthday present for me, and the friend offered to send me one of the bracelets that I have been dreaming for a long time”.
“I started learning French on Duolingo, and within one day I had adverts for all the products and services solely in French! How the hell is it possible?”
“My mother and I were discussing the options for sending money from our country abroad. In two days, I started noticing the ads of the services that could provide simple, fast and reliable money transfers… I had never googled them before, just had a chat with my mum regarding the issue”.
How to protect from wiretapping?
If you do not work with confidential information and are not a dangerous criminal, access to your data is necessary for advertisers only. It’s difficult to get away from being haunted at all, but you can take at least some steps.
- Disable the microphone access for the applications.
If you are a fan of audio messages, then leave, for example, such an opportunity for WhatsApp or Viber, but it is better to disable the function for Facebook and Instagram that were likely to listen to us carefully to select and show the most relevant advertisements for our requests.
Please note: to check which apps have the permission to the microphone, go to Settings on your phone, find Privacy and Microphone. You will see a list of the apps you’ve allowed the microphone access to.
- Do not take up to much “Hey Siri” or “Okay Google”. Lock the “helpers” down at all or do not turn to them very often. It is believed that there are lots of triggers in the applications or features like “Siri” that can easily store your data, and transmit it for analyzing. This is how perfect ads appear and are targeted to you. Without these triggers, there’s no recording. There are just some general metrics being sent to your service provider.
- Disable Bluetooth and GPS connections when you do not use them. It is very easy to track your physical location when the latter is switched on, and carry out some ingenious artifices. There will be no difficulty to reach your personal information for those who are aware of how to do it right. Regarding Bluetooth, accept connections from people you know only.
- Be careful with connecting to “open” WiFi networks. Swindlers became good at creating fake Wi-Fi networks to steal users’ logins and passwords, as well as other personal data. Avoid connecting suspicious networks at all. However, if it is suddenly inevitable, do not use Internet banking or other apps that contain your private information while being connected to the unknown WiFi network.
- Always read terms and conditions when installing applications on your smartphone. Pay attention to what you give your permission to. Many applications require too many rights on your devices, including those that can seriously do you harm.
- Do not ignore annoying reminders about installing updates. When some bugs and vulnerabilities are found in applications, developers immediately try to fix them. If you update applications on time, your system becomes much safer.
- Be conscious of what digital footprints you leave on the Internet. Don’t go to the website and don’t click on the links simply because the title was very interesting. Before publishing anything, it’s worth considering whether you’re satisfied that this information will always remain on the Web and will be available to anyone. Let caution dominate curiosity.
Conclusion
Whether you like or not but your phone is listening to you. Perhaps, not all the time but it does. However, to keep your privacy is not beyond your capabilities. Just take some precautionary measures, especially those which are connected with the access of the microphone for the applications. Then heave a sigh of relief, and keep your wig on!