Your phone IS always listening, here’s how to make it stop
Do you feel like your phone is always listening?
Scrolling on phone / Pexels: Tim Samuel 6697306
CapeTalk’s Lester Kiewit speaks with Arthur Goldstuck, CEO of World Wide Worx.
Listen below:
Many of us have had the experience of talking about something with a friend and seeing a related ad pop up on our phone shortly after.
This can leave us feeling like our phone is always eavesdropping.
If you feel this way you are not alone, and you are not wrong.
“It is no coincidence, your phone does listen to you.”
- Arthur Goldstuck, CEO of World Wide Worx
One of the main reasons your phone is always listening is because of voice activated assistants on your phone, but that is not all your phone uses your voice for.
Most modern smartphones have a service like Google Assistant or Siri, which responds to your voice.
This means your phone's microphone will always be on so it can pick up on the 'wake word' (like the phrase 'Hey Siri') when you say it.
However, your phone will not only be listening to you say this phrase and will pick up everything else you say before and after you use the voice activated assistant.
Thankfully there are some practical ways to manage exactly what our phone microphones have access to, so your private conversations can stay a little more private.
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The best way to do this is to just turn off your microphone permissions if you do not want to use it.
On Android phones you do this by going into settings, permissions, and microphone and choose to deny access.
The approach is similar on Apple where you go to settings, privacy and security, microphone, and choose which apps get access.
You can also deactivate your voice assistant through settings on your phone so your phone stops trying to pick up your voice.
Scroll up to the audio player for more.