Does my phone listen to me for ads

When I woke up last Monday, I felt like a glass of orange juice.

I didnt voice this out loud, I didnt add it to my shopping list on my phone, I just thought to myself: Hey, its Monday morning, and after drinking 2,000 beers over the weekend, it might be nice to treat my body to a glass of the sweet, sweet nectar that is freshly squeezed OJ.

A short while later as I strolled the aisles of the local Woolies, I said to my girlfriend (out loud), Oh yeah, how about some orange juice?

And then, not even 15 minutes after Id already bought said juice, I was scrolling Instagram stories when I was dealt with an advertisement for Nudie orange juice just three swipes in. Youve got to be fucking kidding me, I thought to myself. Thats the second time Id consciously noticed a targeted ad in 24 hours, and the third in a week.

Im not talking about targeted advertisements sourced from browser cookies or my search habits; that marketing tsunami is a different beast. Im talking about instances where Id said something in a private conversation at a volume that only the two parties present could have heard (or so I naively still think) to find it only a few taps away the next time I unlock my iPhone.

The day prior to this, I was discussing Daniel Ricciardos move to McLaren with a colleague. Half an hour later, a Sky Sports article on the same topic popped up at the top of my suggested for you Facebook feed. Earlier that week during dinner with my housemates, I was talking about a PayPal scam that happened to a friend of mine years ago. Next thing I know, theres a PayPal ad waiting for me as I enjoyed a quick scroll before bed.

Is my phone is listening to me? Im certain of it. To what extent though, Ill never know. Some people suspect it, sure, some tech companies have even admitted to it (though not many, and usually after theyve been caught in the act), but we live in a grey area where not everyone fully realises whats happening to them. If you arent aware of it, then you cant control it and thats where the problem currently lies.

At the risk of sounding like a disgruntled Boomer with a tendency to attack every element of technological progression that I struggle to accept, I cant help but admit Im frustrated with the explicit overextension of targeted advertising. And in many ways, the more pissed off I get, the less receptive I am to the brands that are being forced down my throat. Funny that, isnt it? Somewhat ironic, too, for a guy who works in digital media.

But the worst part is that unless you dust off your OG Motorola flip phone or whip out your Grandads typewriter, theres almost nothing you can do to stop it. Ive begun to seriously wonder to what extent this is happening, what precautions or tools we have to mitigate it, and, on which side of the law this subject finds itself.

If my phone is listening to me, is that actually legal?

Lets start with the latter. The short answer is yes, its legal because I give permission for it to happen. Not to mention that the legal system is inherently flawed at regulating these rapidly changing capabilities. The problem is also cross-jurisdictional, but thats another issue entirely.

Despite Facebook consistently denying allegations that its always listening to us, chances are youve already tapped allow when prompted with the request for access to your microphone on all of the companys popular apps, including WhatsApp and Instagram.

For smart assistant services such as Siri, Google and Alexa to function properly, they explicitly rely on what are known as audio triggers to capture specific pieces of data from your conversations. Youre probably familiar with Hey Siri and Okay Google, but you likely dont know that there are hundreds possibly thousands of triggers, and when it comes to Facebook, nobody actually knows what they are.

The information sourced from these known triggers somehow finds its way back to other networks (like Facebooks, for example), but anything beyond that is not fully understood. This data is encrypted and only kept deep within the apps themselves, but you can bet on the fact that its archived and added to an evolving profile of who you are, what youre interested in, and what you might be keen to consume.

So the technology is there. If its 110% possible that a trigger captured by Google will lead to an acutely targeted advertisement on YouTube (also owned by Google), then its not at all impossible that this information ends up elsewhere in the data nexus.

Seeing as Google are open about it, I would personally assume the other companies are doing the same, said Dr. Peter Hannay in an interview with Vice in 2018. Apple even issued a public apology a few years back when its employees were caught snooping on private Siri conversations.

Really, theres no reason they wouldnt be. It makes good sense from a marketing standpoint, and their end-use agreements and the law both allow it, so I would assume theyre doing it, but theres no way to be sure.

To expand on Hannays claims, I turned to Mimecasts cybersecurity expert Garrett OHara, asking him point-blank if he thinks its silly to directly link targeted advertisements with our phones listening to us.

I dont think its silly at all. Every time you think somethings silly these days, it turns out to be true.

But I personally dont think thats whats happening here. You could talk about a holiday in Bali dozens of times and nothing happens, so youre not aware of it, but then one of those times an advertisement might appear just after youve spoken about it, and that could actually be the reason youre linking two and two together.

Its called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, and I think thats what could be at play here for the most part. The human mind is just built that way, it plays funny tricks on us all the time.

Thats not to say there isnt a scary thing happening at the moment with smartphones and digital footprints generally. When you triangulate all of your different data sources out there on the internet its crazy how accurate they can become. They can predict what youre going to do next. Its a bit of a cliché, but they know you better than you know yourself.

To draw the most likely conclusion from this, I ask Garrett why he thinks were quick to pin it on eavesdropping smartphones.

For most people, comprehending the complexity of digital footprints is so confounding that its much easier to just assume that smartphones are listening to us.

This would also conveniently shift the blame from you or I to corporate goliaths like Facebook; when in reality, the responsibility for our privacy falls squarely on us.

Garrett also cleared up some consumer confusion between always on phone listening and isolated instances such as the aforementioned Apple scandal.

There are huge technical barriers to always on listening. Do you know how many billion smartphones there are? The processing power for any company to always be listening to us just isnt possible. Theres no realistic way that they, in real-time, are processing your conversations all the time.

There is some evidence from what they call network snooping to suggest that segments of audio are being sent to Facebook via the cloud much like the audio triggers you spoke of and these triggers dont require as much processing. But that research couldnt figure out what the triggers were which is why I dont think its silly because no one really knows for sure.

If Facebooks track record is anything to go by, these hypotheticals probably dont fall too far from reality.

Facebook already has a huge question mark over its integrity. Every time theyve said theyre not doing something, they actually are its a rinse and repeat scenario. Each time they push the boundaries it becomes the new normal.

In a world that is more digitally opaque by the day, its more important than ever to know how these companies collect this information and what were willing to just accept with blissful ignorance.

Things you can do to get back in control

Think hard about what apps you download onto your devices and connect to your social accounts. Even when theyre deleted, they still have your data and can repurpose it whenever they want for the highest bidder. The more you log-in to websites or services using a Google or Facebook account, the easier it is for them to connect the dots and youve given them further permission to do so.

Im not on Facebook, I use an Android phone and I rarely install apps. I personally dont trust these companies at all, says Garrett, with a light-hearted aside that he doesnt want to be seen as the guy with a tinfoil hat.

But if anyone would have the insight to justify wearing one, itd be him.

Be very conscious of the permissions youre granting apps when you download them and make sure theyre appropriate to the app in question. WhatsApp might need your camera and microphone, but does the Face Swap app really need access to your microphone? Theres some consumer fatigue here when it comes to managing privacy.

Its cases like these that should encourage the average joe to check their microphone settings and location services regularly. Unfortunately, if you want to use any of the common communication apps, you dont have much of a choice in your microphone being switched on. Regardless, you should make sure that its set to only while using the app rather than always, as is the case of iOS.

And while well never really know if that actually achieves anything, comments from Edward Snowden lean even further towards the extreme end of the scale. Take what he said about eavesdropping smartphones in a 2016 episode of Digits, for example.

TV is a medium that you watch. The Internet is a medium that watches you as you watch it. Everywhere you go, even when youre not actively using your phone, its still listening.

I bet you didnt know that your iPhone stores your location data in the depths of its settings, either? It uses it to predict things like weather suggestions, daily alarms, traffic routes home and literally dozens of other targeted pressure points. Amazingly, my phone can tell me how I got home (walked or drove), how long it took for me to get there, and how long I stayed at home for every day since I inspected my apartment last year on November 21st which was three weeks before Id even moved in.

Go to Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations

I went for a walk to Freshwater last Saturday. Turns out my walk and the 16 minutes I spent at the coffee shop were both logged in the depths of my phone. The Apple Pay transaction I did probably connected the dots, too, understanding that I tend to enjoy an almond croissant and a flat white here on Saturday mornings.

Even just by using cash every now and then (but not during COVID-19 for obvious reasons), rather than card, you can win back a small bit of your privacy. Its that easy.

And what if Im wrong?

Before continuing down a very deep and dark rabbit hole that I might not be able to crawl out of in the space of this article, I asked myself okay, say my phone isnt listening to me, what other explanation might there be for this increased targeting?

I quickly realised that Id already answered my own question, with the screenshots above sealing the deal.

Unfortunately, the entire online ecosystem currently revolves around advertisers, not individual users. Data is now a currency, soon to be worth more than oil, gold, and cold hard cash, if not already. We willingly surrender some elements of our privacy and the personal information thats attached to it to enjoy a more convenient and connected world. Ive been doing so ever since I joined Facebook in 2009, and likely even before that with the likes of MySpace, MSN, eBay, and just about everything else Ive ever signed up to. Hell, even my Nintendo 64 probably betrayed me.

Its an element of life that weve had to accept as a society. Our movements, browsing history, spending habits, private messages, interactions, interests, political views, relationships, employment history literally every single thing that weve ever knowingly or unknowingly surrendered to an electronic device is clearly being tracked, stored and sold. Weve even given companies enough angles of our faces to unlock phones with just a sideways glance. Lets not forget that we live in an era where elections and referendums can hang in the balance of this information.

So in theory, 11 years worth of data, a pile which Ive added to via hundreds of touchpoints a day for over 4000 days of my life, could have become so finely tuned to my habits that it predicted on the morning of May 18th, 2020, Id be slightly hungover and probably in the mood for a glass of orange juice. Just as Garrett had suspected.

It really is possible, thats the scariest thing about it all.

Could Facebook have really known that, or was it a complete coincidence? Maybe it was just 15 minutes late to the party, another trial and error in a catalogue of targeted trials used to focus its algorithm even further. Only Zuck can give me the answer, but, if true, this question makes the idea of my phone listening to me seem like the least of my worries.

How concerned do I need to be?

Its the value of this data that should soften any concerns we have about our phones listening to us. For the big players, at least, the buck stops with the data collectors. After all, Facebook, Google and Apple arent going to sell your hard data to third parties when its their biggest asset, the lubricant for their unmatchable money-making machines. Rather than flogging it off to the highest bidders, corporate tech companies prefer the model of acting as the intermediaries for advertisers that are keen to get in front of a specific audience and theyre using our data as the leverage.

But whos to say that wont ever change? Each month theres another report of a big fish getting eaten by an even bigger fish, i.e., a smaller tech giant being acquired by a larger tech giant, fueling the fire even more and monopolising the data game even further.

What happens, then, when the data collection snowball continues to gather so much momentum that its more precise, more powerful and more relentless than the consumer can possibly handle? Surely itll suffocate the user to a point of no return, a point which I became astutely aware of in aisle 5 of Woolworths the other morning.

But hey, whether your phone is listening to you or not, if, like myself, youre only just fighting back now, then youre probably already fucked.

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