No, your phone isn’t listening to you, plenty of tests have been done.
Nah, that doesn’t apply to today’s devices.
There are millions upon millions of people using “Alexa”, “OK Google”, “Bixby” and “Hey Siri”, and those services require the mic to be always listening.
That’s how they work. And when they hear something, that data gets recorded to the company server to do what they like with it, including targeted ads and content.
And I would find it hard to believe that these corporations, with so many privacy-related lawsuits, aren’t using these always-on voice assistants to further market to their users.
The phones have highly optimized functions to listen to keywords. That’s the reason why you can’t change “OK Google” to “OK Jarvis” or whatever you want. Your phone needs to do this locally without wasting battery.
Until the keywords get said the listening is extremely basic. As soon as you say the keywords then the full audio processing kicks in, often including sending what you say to a server.
The phones have highly optimized functions to listen to keywords. That’s the reason why you can’t change “OK Google” to “OK Jarvis” or whatever you want.
Well, I’d argue that you can’t change “OK Google” because that’s a great form of advertising. I’ve even seen movies where they use “Hey Siri” or “Alexa” as a product placement.
Your phone needs to do this locally without wasting battery.
For sure.
That doesn’t mean they don’t “accidentally” record completely irrelevant conversations.
And that also doesn’t mean that what it does record isn’t being aggregated so you can be marketed to.
There have been plenty of tests where CPU and network usage were monitored with one phone.
Once in a quiet soundproof room compared to sitting next to a conversation.
Zero difference.
Recording and parsing audio would kill your battery. And it’s not necessary when most people freely provide their data when using Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, …
There has been zero proof about illegal recording, even though it would be easy to find.