During a drive back from school, Balqees, a mother and her son, Abdullah, were planning to go to a restaurant. The two were speaking and wondering what should they eat and where should they go for lunch. Upon parking at a gas station at Shatti Al Qurum, Balqees picked up her phone only to see a variety of food options including the locations pop up as an advert on the screen of her mobile phone. Interesting but spooky isn’t it? Similarly, Khalfan was searching for places to travel during Eid and was speaking to a travel agent for some vacation ideas in Thailand. Within a few hours, Khalfan opened his mobile phone and saw an ad customised with flights, accommodations and activities to do in Phuket, Thailand. Surprising but scary isn’t it? Both Balqees and Khalfan spoke to me separately about their different incidents but had the same exact question, “Are mobile phones listening to our conversations? ”I am sure this has happened to many of you, or at least with your loved ones. My article this week will try and shed some light on this growing concern.
First things first — the mobile technology heavy weights companies, Apple for iPhone and Google for Android, have openly denied using their microphones to listen onto their customer conversations. Furthermore, both have strict privacy policies that prevent applications from accessing camera, microphone, location, photos and videos from gallery etc without explicit permission. You may notice this whenever you try downloading and installing applications via their respective app market (eg playstore for Google’s Android platform, AppStore for Apple’s platform iPhone/iPad).
On the other hand, however, both of Apple and Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) voice assistants apps (eg Siri and Google Assistant) would respond to you and offer services by simply starting by requesting for one using designated key words such as “Hey Siri” for Apple, and “Hey Google” for Android. I am pretty sure many of you have noticed this lately especially with the latest developments in AI space. Nashat, my wife, is fond of calling home using the words “Hey Siri” and then “Call home” while driving our car.
Hmmm, the technology heavy weights both claim that they don’t listen into our conversations, but they both technically have access to our microphone via the embedded stock AI voice assistance apps in our mobile phones. I have personally experienced the same with customised Ads I get via different apps I use. The customised ads are the result of websites I visit and searches I do, using the mobile phone.
So what can we do to protect ourselves? Almost nothing or probably is a big challenge if one wants to continue living in a connected world and have access to information and services easily, conveniently and rapidly. Virtually everyday a new creative app, driven by some new form of technology (present heavily is AI), using your information, pops up and becomes popular and mainstream in a few span of hours. What fuels these apps is unfortunately your data (ie voice via microphone, video via camera, pictures via your gallery apps).
About 6 years ago, during one of my cybersecurity sessions at one of the local banks here in Oman, I vividly stated that the word “privacy” may no longer be valid at some stage of our lives. I see this pretty much a reality today. Scary, yes I agree. I will try and share some basic steps next week on some ways that can help with protecting oneself privacy.
To conclude, is there someone listening to our conversations? There is no solid evidence or proof yet the technology is there and it is very possible as I had shared on my article today. I also recommend complementing this knowledge by reading my past article on Oman Observer on whether modern cars can spy on us. You will get additional insights on the same for your kind perusal. Until we catch up again, be positive and try to stay safe.
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