Scary Know How Your Phone Is Quietly Recording You Learn How To Stop It

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Hey Everyone!,

Scary Know 

How Your  Phone 

Is Quietly Recording You 

Learn How To Stop It

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But, your phone? It’s your biggest confidant. Always by your side — between dating apps and panicked disease searches. So what’s all this talk that your phone is spying on you? Is it a conspiracy? Can you turn it off?



There is no shortage of Google searches asking the question, “Is my phone spying on me?” But the answer is not so cut and dry. The usual suspects like Facebook and Google claim they’re not recording your calls. Yet, there are games in the app store that access your microphone, despite not having an audio element included in the gameplay.

Here’s what you need to know before you start speaking in hushed whispers — phone stored in a separate area.

Why people are suddenly paranoid

There are countless videos online where someone will mention a keyword under their breath, “paper towels,” “dog food,” “engagement rings.”

And then, magically, some on-point, targeted ads (hours, days later) that item — something they’ve never mentioned before, starts following them around the web as though they had shopping carts full of the stuff across various websites.

That’s not how it works. According to Dr. Peter Henway, a security consultant from Asterix, your phone is technically listening — in the sense that, it is prepared to answer when you say the magic word: “Okay, Google,” “Hey Siri.” The point is, your phone is listening for those keywords, but it doesn’t start recording until the trigger words cross your lips.

To process your requests, the phone does need to be ready, just in case you talk to it. But, researchers say, that your phone is not actively listening in on your conversations, then using that information to sell you more stuff.

Henway also says that while phones are designed to wait for these trigger words, there may be thousands of unknown triggers that can prompt devices to mine for advertising data.

Are Google, Amazon, and Facebook recording your voice?

Facebook is adamant that the company does not listen to your real life conversations in order to load your browser with relevant ads. Your browsing data and Facebook activity has you covered there. 

FB only listens in when you give the app permission to access the microphone. And, beyond that, the platform only accesses the microphone when you use a feature that requires audio.

And Google, it’s worth pointing out, does record what you say to your Google home. But again, it is supposed to record only what you say after the “okay, Google” trigger. That said, there is the chance that you may inadvertently trigger a recording.

Just when we thought Google couldn't get any creepier.

Chances are, you’ve probably used Google Assistant if you have an Android phone—basically the same as iPhones’ Siri—to set an alarm or ask what the weather is. You can access voice control by holding down the phone button or saying “OK Google.” But it turns out hackers spying on you through your laptop camera and a cell phone virus shouldn’t be your only tech fears. Google Assistant might be recording your voice, even when you don’t ask.

Just saying “OK” in a normal conversation can trigger Google Assistant to start recording your voice for about 10 to 20 seconds, according to The Sun. It won’t turn on every time, but something like “OK, go for it” apparently sounds close enough to confuse Assistant. Now think about how many times you say “OK” in a normal day. Yowza.

The alarming thing is, those little sound bytes don’t just disappear—Google keeps them. “For each voice query made to Voice Search, we store the language, the country, the utterance and our system’s guess of what was said,” Google states in its policy for Voice Search, which Assistant uses. “We keep utterances to improve our services, including to train the system to better recognize the correct search query.”

Afraid Google picked up some dirty secrets from your latest gossip session? Thankfully, there’s actually an easy way to find out—and get rid of the evidence.

Head to myactivity.google.com and hit “Activity controls” on the left side of the screen. Scroll down past all these other creepy things Google knows about you (those are creepy enough) and find “Voice & Audio Activity.” Click “manage activity” to find a list of all the recordings Google has of you.

Once you’re done cringing at all the awkward small talk your phone picked up, you can delete a single recording, or even all of them. To get rid of just one, hit “Details” under the item, and select “More” to find the delete option. Want to clear it all? On the top left, click “Delete activity by.” Under the “Delete by date” option, choose “All time” to erase everything.

The thing is, Google doesn’t specify whether it keeps the recordings for itself after you wipe them out of your activity feed, so there’s no guarantee they’re gone for good.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to stop Google from keeping your conversations if you want to use voice control, even if you turn voice and audio activity off. Turning the option off just means voice clips “may only be saved using anonymous identifiers,” according to its site. So Google still knows what you said, even if it doesn’t know it’s you, according to its site. If that creeps you out, the safest thing might be to skip voice control altogether. 

Hope you enjoy reading  this;)

What Do You Think?,Do let me Know or Do you agree or Disagree or Have any other ideas?Please Share your thoughts in the comments below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me!”

Bye for Know,

Sameer 

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