{"id":4060,"date":"2020-01-14T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/langa.com\/?p=4060"},"modified":"2020-01-13T12:47:32","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T17:47:32","slug":"is-it-true-that-my-phone-is-listening-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/14\/is-it-true-that-my-phone-is-listening-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"“Is it true that my phone is listening to me?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Answer requested by Jason Zimmer)<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yup, almost surely, especially if you have any voice-enabled assistant or controls installed and enabled. Those services and features are designed to at least minimally listen all the time<\/strong><\/em> so that they can hear and can respond whenever you happen to say \u201cSiri\/Google\/Bixby\/Alexa\/Cortana\/whatever\u201d or whatever trigger phrase your assistant uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less-obvious apps may be listening too, including any<\/em> app to which you\u2019ve given microphone access: If it\u2019s running in the background, it could be listening. (Facebook’s app is often accused of this; there are many anecdotal reports of people conversing about a product near (not on) their phone, and Facebook later magically showing them multiple ads for that exact class of product.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only way to completely avoid this is draconian — remove all mic access from all apps, and hope that your software vendors don’t try to weasel around your settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barring that, all you can do is be very selective about which apps have mic (and camera!) access. If an app has no obvious reason for requesting invasive permissions, it’s a bad app: Ditch it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
It’s probably listening right now, by design.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Permalink: https:\/\/langa.com\/?p=4060<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"[seperator]\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

COMMENT \/ QUESTION<\/strong> on THIS ITEM?<\/strong> See the<\/em> Comment box<\/strong> at bottom of this page!<\/em>

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(Answer requested by Jason Zimmer) Yup, almost surely, especially if you have any voice-enabled assistant or controls installed and enabled. Those services and features are designed to at least minimally listen all the time so that they can hear and can respond whenever you happen to say \u201cSiri\/Google\/Bixby\/Alexa\/Cortana\/whatever\u201d or whatever trigger phrase your assistant uses….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-reader-asks","category-smartphones"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paaiox-13u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":758,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/17\/a-reader-asks-should-i-factory-reset-a-phone-that-previously-belonged-to-someone-else\/","url_meta":{"origin":4060,"position":0},"title":"A reader asks: Should I factory reset a phone that previously belonged to someone else?","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2018-10-17","format":false,"excerpt":"Q: Should I factory reset a phone that previously belonged to someone else? (via Quora) A: Yes, absolutely! You have no way of knowing what might still be on the phone... spyware, malware, traces of illicit images or activity, whatever. I suggest you reset the phone before you plug in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4720,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/10\/how-do-i-turn-off-the-microphone-on-my-android\/","url_meta":{"origin":4060,"position":1},"title":"“How do I turn off the microphone on my Android?”","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2020-04-10","format":false,"excerpt":"(Answer requested by Brandon Dotson) There's no master \"off\" switch. But there an often-overlooked, semi-stand-alone applet within Android's Settings that comes close: Permissions Manager. This is not the app-by-app Permissions settings you may have already seen and used in Settings\/Apps. Android's Permissions Manager sorts all your apps at once by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/android-mic-permission-manager.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3752,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/22\/how-can-phones-go-through-20-of-charge-overnight-when-theyre-closed-and-no-apps-are-running-in-the-background\/","url_meta":{"origin":4060,"position":2},"title":"“How can phones go through 20% of charge overnight, when they’re closed and no apps are running in the background?”","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2019-11-22","format":false,"excerpt":"(Answer requested by Jamie Moore) Assuming the phone and battery are otherwise in good condition, the only way it'd lose that much charge when \"closed\" overnight is if it's not really idle: Clearly, some apps are still running, despite your efforts. Perhaps they're periodically waking themselves to go online for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc"","block_context":{"text":"Misc","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/misc\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/power-usage-by-app_Device-care.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5561,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/01\/have-you-enabled-win10s-ransomware-protection\/","url_meta":{"origin":4060,"position":3},"title":"Have you enabled Win10\u2019s ransomware protection?","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2021-02-01","format":false,"excerpt":"This free, optional feature is disabled by default but, if enabled, can help protect and recover your PC from a ransomware takeover! It\u2019s easy to enable the ransomware protection, but you should know about its quirks and drawbacks before doing so. 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As a result, PC's using USB storage would typically buffer (temporarily store in RAM) data that was destined for an external device. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/USB_icon.png?fit=417%2C200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4060"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4083,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions\/4083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}