Have you ever heard the phrase “walls have ears?” Well so do our mobile devices. Be it your mobile phone, smart watch or TV, they can listen to commands and perform requested actions. But are they the proverbial fly on the wall silently listening to private conversations in the background? What do they do with this information and how can you ensure conversations are not recorded and transmitted elsewhere.

The proverbial fly on the wall

With the arrival of voice assistant technology, devices such as smart phones and watches do more than just the basics. Voice assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant when enabled remain active in the background and are always listening. They wait to hear their wake or trigger words such as “Hey Siri “or “Ok Google” to respond to requests such as finding the best navigation route, telling the weather forecast or setting a reminder. While this functionality offers a lot of user convenience and time savings, it certainly comes at a price.

If virtual assistants do not listen all the time, they cannot respond to wake words and act at users’ request.  What’s more, they are listening with your permission. Yes, you read that right. Every time you accept the terms and conditions of a software or application, you agree to a lot of things. This includes how software vendors gather your information and what they can do with that information. According to vendors, voice data is collected for quality assurance, improving user experience and targeted marketing.

Your privacy is in your hands

Fortunately, your privacy is still in your hands. You may not have much of a choice when it comes to agreeing to terms of conditions of use but that doesn’t mean software vendors can do whatever they please with your data. Technology giant Apple recently settled a class action lawsuit for $95 million. The claimants said their devices eavesdropped on conversations. Consequently, they received targeted advertising on products even though they had not used the wake word “Hey Siri”. Similarly, Google is also facing a class action lawsuit accusing it of listening to customer conversations without their permission.

Beyond high profile lawsuits, there are several things you can do to limit the use of your voice data for unwanted purposes such as brand profiling and targeted advertising. I must however point out that voice assistant software is not the only application that can listen to and record snippets on conversations. Any application with access to your devices’ microphone can also do so. This includes malicious software installed on your phone or computer.

Take Precaution

I took time to review my mobile phone’s microphone and camera settings as part of my preparation for this article. The outcome was not pleasing. Some settings which were no longer needed remained enabled despite device upgrade. Though no harm was done, I strongly recommend periodically reviewing your devices’ settings to ensure you are up to date on the apps installed and their permissions.

For example, you can uninstall apps that are not in use. This gets rid of any malicious software that may have been unintentionally installed on your mobile device. Secondly review permissions on your devices’ microphone settings. You will surely find one or two apps which do not need access to it. Toggle it off. Finally, you can decide to disable virtual assistants entirely if you feel the benefit of convenience is not a good tradeoff for privacy.

Furthermore, you can practice good cyber hygiene by downloading and using only verified apps, keeping apps and operating systems up to date, periodically deleting your voice request history and reading through the terms and conditions of  software vendors when you can.

A balancing Act

There are no doubts voice assistants provide much needed support. It certainly saves times to verbally ask for the start of the next season of your favorite TV show than to type in the same request and obtain feedback. However, users must be aware of the flip side to virtual assistant technology or any application that has access to their device microphone.

Even though voice assistants do not record entire conversations, they still can capture random snippets of conversations they find useful for purposes beyond user control.  Perhaps you may consider turning off your voice assistant the next time you are involved in a deeply private conversation. And as always, be safe, stay healthy and be cyber secure.