A tech expert reveals the reason why our devices might ‘tune into’ our conversations – and what we can do about it
Smartphone users know all too well that chilling feeling when an ad pops up for the very thing we were speaking about just hours before.
Is it a coincidence? Tech skeptics say higher powers are listening in, but what’s the truth – is our phone really listening to what we say, gathering information about who we are and what we enjoy?
“People don’t like paying for apps. You can get an app for free, but nothing is for free,” warns Dr Mustafa Mustafa, Senior Lecturer in Systems and Software Security at the University of Manchester. “What these app developers do is they sell your data to advertisers. This is an essential part of their survival – apart from providing a service to you, they also try to make money out of your data.”
So, according to one technology expert, our phones are listening to us, but how do they gather this information, and where does it go?
“There are applications that require access to the microphone and work in response to our voice, for example voice assistants,” Dr Mustafa explains, meaning our phone is always essentially keeping an ear out for prompts like ‘Hey Siri’ or ‘Ok Google’.
“If you want a voice assistant we cannot get out of the way of the fact that our phones will be constantly listening to our voice,” he adds.
Dr Mustafa spoke to the Manchester Evening News as part of our Science Spotlight series. Each week we chat to a different researcher to answer burning science questions. We’ll shine a light on the wonders that shape our universe, remarkable technology, and the mysteries of the mind and body.
This data collected by apps and service providers on our devices is very valuable. “It provides a lot of information about us as human beings, our interests and our hobbies,” Dr Mustafa says. “Most of the time, companies actually misuse it. Although they say that they will not use this data for any other purpose, what happens in reality is they do use the data for other purposes.
“They sell the data to advertisers, and this is how we might end up in the situation where we talk about a product and then this is being picked up by the microphone, being processed and this data is being sold to advertisers. Then we start seeing advertisements on that specific topic,” he adds, explaining he believes data is collected on a daily basis and then sold to advertisers, so they get fresh data about us every day
How to protect your data
You might be thinking, is this even allowed? “In the ideal world, all the data that is collected stays on your phone – it’s processed locally and only when the keywords are selected,” Dr Mustafa explains.
It can be very difficult to prove what data applications and service providers are collecting and selling, and why. According to Mustafa, companies will often claim they have been hacked and they didn’t sell personal data to third parties.
What’s more, this is likely something we have all inadvertently agreed to. “Very often, people don’t read the terms and conditions of these apps where they unwillingly agree to provide all types of data to the app providers,” Dr Mustafa says.
To ensure his data is as protected as possible, Mustafa says he always gives apps permission to access his contact details, microphone, location based on the feature of the app.
“If I install a news app, I don’t want them to have access to my contacts or microphone. Why would they want that? For some specific applications I allow access to my location because they’re location-based services and I want to make use of them. I always select that they have access to my location only when the app is open,” he explains, warning that entertainment apps tend to collect lots of data, so he doesn’t install those on his devices.
The future of data protection
Worryingly, Mustafa warns the rising use of artificial intelligence (AI) could complicate things further, with service providers more likely to ‘misuse’ it as a tool to collect more and more data, and process it very quickly.
As part of his work at the University of Manchester, Dr Mustafa leads one of six clusters into research related to digital trust, cyber security and data privacy. In the Trusted Digital Systems Cluster, his research team is designing privacy enhancing technologies.
“This would allow service providers to still use data that is needed for them to provide a service but, at the same time, to minimise the collection and processing of private data of users,” Mustafa says, explaining that his techniques are mathematically proven to calculate something without having access to fine grain data. Essentially, service providers could adopt this technology to let their users know they can trust them with their data.
But Mustafa highlights there is so much we don’t know about how this personal data gets from us to third party advertisers. And some people aren’t mad about it. According to Integral Ad Science, almost three-quarters of consumers (74 per cent) prefer ads targeted to the content they’re viewing.
As our phones become increasingly tuned to our every move, the line between convenient and sinister blurs. As Mustafa warns, nothing is free – and how much are we willing to sacrifice to the personalised digital world?