Cybersecurity · 6 minutes
Are you ever just sitting down with your friends and talking about a hiking trip that you have been meaning to take for a few months now? Amid the conversation, you glance down at your phone and swipe through your Facebook. And you might immediately notice several ads for sleeping tents, hiking gear, and bags. Then you suddenly feel alarmed. Is this a mere coincidence, or was your phone just listening to your conversation?
Technology companies like Google and Instagram are adamant. For instance, they are claiming that they are not listening to their users' private conversations. What's more, Amazon and Facebook insist that they do not send their users' targeted ads using their private data. Nevertheless, the majority of the population remains skeptical of these claims. Most people believe that technology companies are indeed processing auditory data without permission.
Apple introduced Siri in 2011. The first virtual assistant designed explicitly for iPhones. This introduction gradually paved the way for Cortana, Alexa among many others. These virtual assistants operating using advanced artificial intelligence pay attention to our voice. More importantly, they can recognize our voice commands to send texts, make calls and use our device. Undoubtedly, we can say that our phone is indeed listening to us through our device's onboard microphone. It has to hear your voice in order to assist you. Things, however, are not as starkly defined. Boundaries and intentions blur. And the users not having any clues about where their data is ending up.
Brimming with good intentions and in hopes of improving services, Apple selects portions of users' conversations through randomized selection. Nevertheless, a report revealed a dumbfounded finding in 2019. Sometimes, Siri can be mistakenly activated by our voice. Eventually, it ends up recording matters that are best left unrecorded. Then, contractors analyze these private conversations to ensure quality control. When the news broke, Apple profusely apologized to its consumer. Also, they promised to update its policies. However, Apple's Siri is not the only virtual assistant that eavesdrops. Many large tech companies are doing such a thing as Apple did. For example, Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant use similar settings as well.
When asking Google Assistant and Siri to complete a particular task or look for something, we supply them with the information they use for targeted ads. If you are in search of winter gear, or house mortgages. Ads related to these will pop up all over your social media. Also, virtual assistants behave similarly to search engines in this regard.
Subsequently, there is a concept known as “Behavioural advertising." This involves building a profile of your internet interactions over time. Different companies bid on this essential information to bombard users with ads. Why? The main reason is that they think will pique their interest. As well as that, this bundle of information includes private data links such as geolocations and personal addresses when, for example, shopping online. This is a brazen breach of privacy. That is, nobody should be recording our interactions without explicit permission.
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Then, an important question arises? Why are the tech companies listening to customers? Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are some of the major companies that listen to users. They are keeping tabs on their users' online interactions for targeted marketing. Numerous companies and brands get authorization from your social networking websites to monitor your activity on the internet. What's more, the data they collect ranges from the cookies we accept to our demographics, geolocations, and more.
In doing so, these brands target audiences with specific interests, personality traits, and preferences they are in search of. All these provide them with a greater probability of making sales and locating their target demographic. They use hyper-technical tools to do such a thing. For instance, artificial Intelligence (virtual assistants), algorithms, and big data work together to send targeted ads most efficiently.
Indeed, the right to privacy is being shrouded in a mist more and more with each passing day. It's true that we live in Orwellian times. Nearly everything nowadays is recorded, analyzed, and stored. Research at Northeastern University reported that almost 17,000 Android apps were found, “recording the phone’s screen and sending that information out to third parties.” That is, this is an alarming development. Nobody should be accessing our private excursions without our explicit consent.
Social media such as Facebook also have the potential to listen to you.
While this targeted marketing strategy might be a source of convenience for some people, others might find it intrusive. Following are some of the steps we can adopt to protect ourselves from big brother listening to us.
Numerous people are uncomfortable with targeted ads. Apple has come under the spotlight for transcribing audio recordings of people who use Siri. Disabling Siri will stop our data from being uploaded and transcribed for further analysis. To turn off "Hey Siri," all we need to do is navigate to our iOS device's settings and turn off the "Hey Siri" feature.
“OK Google” is another voice-controlled function. The query recorded and permanently saved to our accounts. This function also has access to our private conversations. Turning off "OK Google" can help further solidify our privacy. Additionally, disabling “Mic Access” can further guarantee us some semblance of privacy.
Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and others should always be downloaded from official websites. Some of us end up downloading them from suspicious websites. This harms our privacy by introducing dangerous spyware or malware into your devices.
It is always wise to review all the installed apps on our devices. Sometimes apps are automatically downloaded during malware attacks, and some are granted permission to access our microphones for no fathomable reason. Remove and update accordingly.
Software vulnerabilities make our devices more susceptible to cyberattacks and security breaches. To always stay one step ahead of these attacks, something as simple as updating our phones can save us a lot of misery.
A virtual private network conceals our IP address. It is a trusted way to immediately enhance our privacy, especially while surfing the internet. The internet is brimming with suspicious malware waiting to bind itself to something in order to sneak into our phones. Turbo VPN will help us achieve that with just a single click! We no longer have to worry about big brother snooping in on us.
Learning how to be in control of our devices ultimately means that we now know how to control our data. This is absolutely essential in this day and age where anything seldom remains private anymore. The majority of the population does not wish to fall victim to targeted marketing, which can sometimes be insensitive and inappropriate when it misses its mark. Adding an extra layer of security using the Turbo VPN will surely provide you with the comfort and security you rightfully deserve. It's time to download the best-in-class VPN proxy to enjoy the absolute cybersecurity!
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