CAUTION: your cell phone can hear you; see how to stop this

Have you ever had the feeling of mentioning a product or brand in conversation, only to be surprised by related ads in your social media shortly after? Could it be a coincidence or do our cell phones hear us? The answer may surprise you.

Have you been spied on on your cell phone?

Is your cell phone listening to you? – Image: Canva Pro/Reproduction

The experience of being “observed” via cell phone is more common than we think. After carrying out a search, many of us come across advertisements and suggestions aimed at the topic we are looking for.

Although this is a marketing strategy to personalize advertising, the invasion of our privacy is inevitable.

The suspicion that our devices listen to us is true. Virtual assistants like Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa constantly listen to us, requiring this ability to activate voice commands and offer support to users.

However, the question is: to what extent is such eavesdropping invasive? Companies use these recordings to improve the quality of service or for marketing purposes, thus transforming our virtual assistants into almost a personalized search engine.

Testing your cell phone

The good news is that it is possible to check if your device has been spying on you. Create a simple “trap”:

• Choose an unlikely topic: opt for something that wouldn’t normally be associated with your personality, something you never talk about;

• Isolate the thread from your cell phone: avoid search information about the subject on any device. Make sure you have not previously researched the topic on search engines;

• Keywords as trigger: think of a list of keywords that could trigger search engines;

• Discuss the topic out loud: do this next to your cell phone, alone or with another person, for several minutes over the course of a few days.

After that, notice if new ads start targeting you on social media and Google. If the answer is yes, it’s likely that your phone has made it easier for you to see these ads.

Protecting your privacy: practical tips

The legality of this monitoring is linked to the terms and conditions of the service providers. By using virtual assistants, we give consent to this practice. However, it is illegal for an app to spy on you without consent.

To protect your privacy, follow these tips:

• Review application permissions;
• Install a VPN to encrypt your traffic;
• Clear your activities and disable audio recording;
• Carefully choose the information that shares.