Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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How much proof is there that smart tvs and phones listen to you? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 weeks ago by bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Like, we all know they're listening , but can we provide proof?

My friend was complaining about all the new super surveillance that will be government required in cars after 2027, and I said to him dude you have a stock android, you use every AI slop feature, you use a smart TV on your unsecured network, and uses x every day. They have everything they could possibly need on him. Oh and he posts questionable things to fb daily under his real name.

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[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Aside from devices that acknowledge theyre listening all the time there actually isnt any, for undisclosed data collection via microphone specifically. Research has, to my knowledge, never found that to be the case

Researchers have generally explained that they dont need to listen to what you say with a microphone- they collect so much data about you they can accurately model what you're likely to have any interest in, and when that happens frequently enough confirmation bias takes over.

That being said, yes, that person is having all of their data collected, by meta directly and through cookies tracking them around the web. By google and android. By ai, and other companies. By the tracking images in the emails they open. Etc. Theres lots of evidence for all of those things

And there is evidence for companies having collected data that people didnt concent to, like when google tracked location data that people opted out of sharing (there was a lawsuit) or meta recently ended up in the news for circumventing the sandboxing around the Facebook app to collect mobile web activity in a way they're not supposed to be able to.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Aside from devices that acknowledge theyre listening all the time there actually isnt any, for undisclosed data collection via microphone specifically. Research has, to my knowledge, never found that to be the case

Please stop quoting this misinformation.

Microphone hijacking is real, and it is common. The average user has been a victitm of it.

And in addition, Google and Apple effectively admitted to microphone spying in court.

[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Did they? I read the article and the conclusion is they got fined but didn't admit to anything, nor was any proof shown that they did anything. The whole thing was about Siri getting activated by ambient noise.

[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Neither of those sources really disagree with what I said, though I do appreciate you adding the additional context because those things are worth knowing about

Smart speaker research: Security researchers have documented potential vulnerabilities in smart speakers and voice assistants.

• Mobile security: Documented cases of spyware accessing device microphones have been reported.

• Enterprise security: Organizations have reported incidents involving unauthorized audio access.

• Application permissions: Studies have shown some applications requesting unnecessary microphone access.

None of those are really the widespread, passive, undisclosed listening for advertising data that people imagine there to be and that OP appeared to be asking about. The google and apple lawsuit is about google assistant and siri triggering unintentionally, which is a feature that discloses its always listening which I mentioned at the very beginning

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/facebook-doesnt-need-listen-through-your-microphone-serve-you-creepy-ads old article but the eff is pretty reputable

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/features/no-your-iphone-isnt-listening-to-you-heres-but-the-truth-is-even-worse/ from 2025