Is Your Phone Listening to You? Here’s How to Check

You may have noticed a strange activity where you see an ad for a product on Instagram or Google that you were discussing about with a friend moments earlier. It is eerie. You cannot help but think that your phone is secretly recording your conversations. While the reality may be close to your thought, it is not entirely true. Let us separate facts from fear and show you how to check what your phone is actually doing.

Can phones listen to you?

Yes, but only if you allow it to. In other words, modern smartphones, both Android and iOS, have strict permissions on when they can access the microphones. So, even though phones can listen to you, it is not exactly the way you assume. Only when you have allowed an app to listen to you will it use the phone’s microphone.

However, phones do listen for trigger phrases like “Ok, Google” or “Hey, Siri,” sparking speculation that the microphone remains active as long as the phone is turned on. Both Apple and Google have denied actively eavesdropping for advertising purposes. Still, microphone access is an important privacy control you should cautiously exercise. That means you should know what apps have access to your phone’s microphones and the times when they use them to listen to you.

How to check which apps have microphone access?

On Android:

— Go to Settings > Privacy > Permission Manager.
— Tap Microphone.
— Check which apps have access: “Allowed all the time,” “Allowed only while in use,” or “Denied.”

On iPhone:

— Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone.
— You will see a list of apps with different toggles. Review and revoke the access according to your needs. For instance, a photo-editing app should not be using the microphone, but apps like Instagram may need access for recording videos.

How to tell which apps are using microphones?

The latest Android and iOS versions have privacy indicators for when an app tries to access sensitive hardware like the microphones. On both platforms, you will see a green or orange dot in the corner of the screen when the microphone or camera or both are active. Pulling down the Control Centre on iOS and the Quick Settings panel on Android shows more details about which apps are accessing the microphone or camera.

So, why do ads on Google or Instagram seem personal?

While companies deny that they record your voice without permission or use the data for advertising, products discussed with a friend often end up in an online advertisement, especially on platforms such as Instagram or Google. There could be multiple reasons why these advertisements feel personal.

Your phone is part of an ecosystem, either Google’s or Apple’s, so everything you do contributes to your digital footprint. While both platforms claim privacy-centric tools and services, you end up unintentionally sharing data with these companies through your search history, app usage, location, browsing habits, and even the social graph. All this data is enough to create a profile so accurate it feels like your phone is reading your mind, or even eavesdropping.

The bottom line

While the ads you see on online platforms seem personal, they may not have been part of targeted advertising because your phone decided to eavesdrop. Your phone is not listening to you around the clock, because it does not have to. Your digital behaviour is enough to allow advertisers and online services to understand what you are looking for, so maybe do not blame your phone. Still, you must keep a check on the apps that have access to your phone’s microphones.

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