For years, smartphone users have been growing increasingly suspicious that their devices are listening to them to feed them advertisements and to "enhance their experience" on third-party apps. Companies like Google and Facebook have consistently denied these claims, saying that targeted ads and messages are merely a coincidence, and that data for these services are taken in other ways.
However, earlier this year during the Cambridge Analytica scandal we began to see some of the first hints that our phones may actually be listening to us.
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie says that they have probably been listening all along. During an
appearance before the UK parliament, Wylie said, "There's audio that could be useful just in terms of, are you in an office environment, are you outside, are you watching TV, what are you doing right now?"
Since the scandal, experts who have studied this possibility began revealing their surprising results.
In a recent
interview with Vice, Dr. Peter Hannay, the senior security consultant for the cybersecurity firm Asterisk, explained how third-party apps exploit a loophole to gather the voice data from your phone.
Comment: While it's easy to scoff at any outrage over these seemingly trivial changes, the PC wave is truly destructive in its implications and overall goals. What seem like small things are simply the ripples of the coming tsunami. Take shelter!