Privacy

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Android Microphone Snooping (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I had a verbal conversation with a coworker yesterday and now I'm getting fed very specific ads. No possible way it's accidental. I have most of the microphone access to apps limited, I have Google assistant turned off and no VPA setup in my home. I use a Oneplus 9 pro, does anyone have recommendations on how to further root cause this or just par for the course for using any standard android OS? Have other folks had similar experience after locking down their stock phones?

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Android is sending a ton of data, though, even if you're not doing anything internet related. It, also, kinda reacts to "okay, google", which wouldn't really be possible if it wasn't listening.

Now, it obviously doesn't keep a continuous, lossless audio stream from the phone to some google server. But, it could be sending text parsed from audio locally, or just snippets of audio when the thing detects speech. Relatively normal stuff to collect for analytics purposes, actually.

Now, data like that could "easily" get "misplaced", of course, and end up in the ad-shoveling machine... Not necessary at Google's hands: could be any app, really. Facebook, TickTok, random free to play Candy Crush clone, etc. But if that data gets into the interwoven clusterfuck of advertisement might, it will likely end up having an effect on the ads shown to the user.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

it does not upload audio clips unless you opt in during the first use of assistant
well, and text will obviously get sent if assistant activation results in a google search, pretty sure actions like setting a timer run fully locally without any feedback to google (except general anonymous analytics data which is not that "scary")