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How much proof is there that smart tvs and phones listen to you? (suppo.fi)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/privacy@programming.dev
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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.

OQB @bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works

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[–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Just watched the first video. It's 6 years old but the evidence presented seemed undoubtedly like Instagram and FB were listening to conversations and aggregating the info together with geolocation and surfing behaviour. The insta CEO tried to deflect it with insinuating that the user must have searched for specific keywords previously but the journalists specifically tested it with words in conversations they never exposed their phones to before. 20 mins later they got AD's on insta.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I scoped this out once a while ago, and using wake word style matching to a table of keywords can be done with low power and low network egress.

    I just don’t think all these companies can be accessing your mic without Apple noticing something.

    But then everyone has smart devices around, and they can look at what people in your network searched and who you’re in proximity to. Which is all actually worse than audio snooping in my opinion.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago

    Don't know about Apple. My impression is that they take privacy pretty serious. Android though has since a few version ago a green dot in the notification area that indicates when the microphone is active. Also you can set the apps to always ask the user if they want grant the permission for microphone recording. There are also buttons to deactivate the microphone and camera completely.

    So yeah it's easier then ever with current Android versions to not be spied on if the user invests 5 mins to set the microphone and camera permissions of all apps to always ask when used. Like you said other spying IOT devices and data retention (at least for traffic data) at the provider level pose a much greater risk for surveillance.

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