Is your iPhone listening to you?

[ForkHandles]

I understand the nature of coincidence but sometimes it’s hard to believe.

I was chatting to a friend about his son in the car for a couple of hours. He was telling me all about the boys drum lessons. The conversation went into all manner of things but included the fact that he bought an electronic drum kit, for reasons, and that he chose ones made by Roland.

We got out of the car, I visited MacRumors and this advert appeared. Bear in mind, I’m not musical, I am highly unlikely to have visited sites that suggest I am, I have cross site trackers disabled. I don’t really do social media apart from this and another niche forum.

Is my iPhone listening to me?

 

[Reverend Benny]

I understand the nature of coincidence but sometimes it’s hard to believe.

I was chatting to a friend about his son in the car for a couple of hours. He was telling me all about the boys drum lessons. The conversation went into all manner of things but included the fact that he bought an electronic drum kit, for reasons, and that he chose ones made by Roland.

We got out of the car, I visited MacRumors and this advert appeared. Bear in mind, I’m not musical, I am highly unlikely to have visited sites that suggest I am, I have cross site trackers disabled. I don’t really do social media apart from this and another niche forum.

Is my iPhone listening to me?

Could be, or to be more precise, what app is listening to you.
But it could also be your friends phone that is listening to you both.
Since you are traveling in the same car, might have apps that share data (i.e. google maps) prob have eachother in your contacts and communication apps (whatsapp, telegram) it could be any or both of you.

 

[ForkHandles]

Could be, or to be more precise, what app is listening to you.
But it could also be your friends phone that is listening to you both.
Since you are traveling in the same car, might have apps that share data (i.e. google maps) prob have eachother in your contacts and communication apps (whatsapp, telegram) it could be any or both of you.

That’s got me thinking.

I have an Android operating system on my ev car. Unavoidable I’m afraid.

However the account I created for that only lives on the car not my device! I simply never use Google.

There is carplay however!!!!

Conspiracy theory territory now. Can the Google system talk retrieve data from CarPlay?

 

[Reverend Benny]

Not sure its so much of a conspiracy theory. They all harvest data from us in one way or the other.
Have a look at what apps that you allow access to our microphone on your phone, that's a good start.

 

[AdamInKent]

Could it be that your friend has recently bought a drum kit from Roland and that social media knows that you are friends and that they make the assumption that friends have shared interests in common and that you, therefore may also be interested in drum kits.

So, without listening in, they are using friend networks to guess what you might be interested in.

 

[BigBlur]

It could just be something simple called Frequency Illusion. Once in a while I'll notice an ad for something that I randomly thought about one day. I doubt my devices are reading my mind.

But otherwise, if it was indeed a targeted ad, there's so many ways that could have happened. I'm guessing your friend was researching drum kits online and/or bought it online. Have you and your friend ever shared the same Wi-FI/IP address? They could have linked you together that way.

Are you guys friends on social media? Advertisers like to show ads to friends, because friends are often interested in the same things.

 

[super chimp]

I’ve often wondered this as well when talking to friends that afterwards I’ll get related videos on You Tube to a topic being discussed, or in some cases adverts.

 

[HouseLannister]

Simple solution: use an adblocker. Let them have my data. They are just wasting their efforts trying to advertise to me, because I never see it.

 

[ForkHandles]

Simple solution: use an adblocker. Let them have my data. They are just wasting their efforts trying to advertise to me, because I never see it.

I don’t mind the ads, I regularly click the ones on this site, as I believe it’s the least I can do for 20+ years of free content.

 

[ForkHandles]

It could just be something simple called Frequency Illusion. Once in a while I'll notice an ad for something that I randomly thought about one day. I doubt my devices are reading my mind.

But otherwise, if it was indeed a targeted ad, there's so many ways that could have happened. I'm guessing your friend was researching drum kits online and/or bought it online. Have you and your friend ever shared the same Wi-FI/IP address? They could have linked you together that way.

Are you guys friends on social media? Advertisers like to show ads to friends, because friends are often interested in the same things.

@AdamInKent
The only possibility I can imagine is through WhatsApp, it’s the only one we share in common that has access to the microphone!!

That said I’m quite taken by the idea of Frequency Illusion, perhaps I always get adverts for drumming, my eye skirted over them all, until today.

Love a conspiracy though, much more fun.

 

[Olde Dave]

Happens to my wife and I frequently.

Similar to what @BigBlur said, I saw an ad once for a product I hadn't even discussed with anyone, I had just THOUGHT about it. 🤣

I just chalk it up to coincidence, or maybe I had previously seen the ad without actually realizing I had and it was buried in my subconscious. The ads for products/similar things to what we've discussed, I fully believe were possibly heard and harvested. Whether that's on the phone side of things, or an app, I couldn't say. I don't really give it much thought, I just don't click on ads I see for things.

 

[AdamInKent]

@AdamInKent
The only possibility I can imagine is through WhatsApp, it’s the only one we share in common that has access to the microphone!!

I don’t think it’s the microphone that’s the problem. Take a moment to consider the worldwide computing power that would be required to listen in to the conversations of everyone with a mobile phone or other smart device 🤯

A much simpler and less compute intensive solution to serving targeted adverts is that WhatsApp knows who your friends and family are (via your contacts) and is owned by Facebook. So social media knows that a friend of yours has been buying drums from Roland, so it serves you drum adverts on the off-chance that it might be an interest that you share in common.

 

[User #07242024]

No, because we also get lots of ads that don’t matter to us it’s just that we don’t bother to count.

 

[fatTribble]

That’s got me thinking.

I have an Android operating system on my ev car. Unavoidable I’m afraid.

However the account I created for that only lives on the car not my device! I simply never use Google.

There is carplay however!!!!

Conspiracy theory territory now. Can the Google system talk retrieve data from CarPlay?

I have no answers but I applaud your skepticism of Google.

 

[surferfb]

Your phone’s not actually “listening.”

If a company were secretly recording conversations through your microphone without consent, that would almost certainly violate wiretapping laws (in the U.S. and most other jurisdictions). More importantly, it’s not even necessary for their business model. The amount of data advertisers already collect (search history, app activity, online purchases, social graphs, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth location, and other metadata) is so detailed and predictive that they don’t need to eavesdrop.

What’s happening is ad networks pool a ton of that data and then push ads. If you or anyone in the car has given Facebook or Google location access, they also probably know you were together, and that’s enough for the algorithm to link you and serve you ads in case you are also in the market or can influence your friend.

So when your buddy (who probably did a good bit of research over multiple day/weeks) searched for drums, the system flagged you as someone in his circle and sent you ads too. My wife gets ads for stuff I search (and vice versa, if I turn off my ad blocker). Even if I’ve never spoken to her about the product. Sometimes she’ll joke “don’t even think about buying that new camera” when she start seeings ads for one of my hobbies show up in her feed.

I have a friend who works for a major data firm; he has told me that he thinks if people actually understood how much (and what) data they had on people there would be literal riots. 😬

 

[Tres]

Your phone’s not actually “listening.”

If a company were secretly recording conversations through your microphone without consent, that would almost certainly violate wiretapping laws (in the U.S. and most other jurisdictions). More importantly, it’s not even necessary for their business model. The amount of data advertisers already collect (search history, app activity, online purchases, social graphs, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth location, and other metadata) is so detailed and predictive that they don’t need to eavesdrop.

What’s happening is ad networks pool a ton of that data and then push ads. If you or anyone in the car has given Facebook or Google location access, they also probably know you were together, and that’s enough for the algorithm to link you and serve you ads in case you are also in the market or can influence your friend.

So when your buddy (who probably did a good bit of research over multiple day/weeks) searched for drums, the system flagged you as someone in his circle and sent you ads too. My wife gets ads for stuff I search (and vice versa, if I turn off my ad blocker). Even if I’ve never spoken to her about the product. Sometimes she’ll joke “don’t even think about buying that new camera” when she start seeings ads for one of my hobbies show up in her feed.

I have a friend who works for a major data firm; he has told me that he thinks if people actually understood how much (and what) data they had on people there would be literal riots. 😬

Also something people who think their devices are eavesdropping forget is: Think of the vast amounts of data processing that would be required to listen in on all of those conversations just to pick out certain keywords. It's completely impractical for a private company to do.

 

[LionTeeth]

Also something people who think their devices are eavesdropping forget is: Think of the vast amounts of data processing that would be required to listen in on all of those conversations just to pick out certain keywords. It's completely impractical for a private company to do.

Then how is it I can talk to my phone about dog food for ten minutes and suddenly see dog food ads on instagram?

I don't own a dog.

This stuff is so provable it's not even a question of "if". They are clearly listening in on some pathway, and every time this comes up, there are apologizers saying well it's just they're so sophisticated etc.

There is near zero chance they're so sophisticated that they can assume at 2pm on Monday I will exercise my free will and talk about surf boards for ten minutes (I don't surf) to prove they listen in and they show me ads of it.

 

[surferfb]

Then how is it I can talk to my phone about dog food for ten minutes and suddenly see dog food ads on instagram?

I don't own a dog.

This stuff is so provable it's not even a question of "if". They are clearly listening in on some pathway, and every time this comes up, there are apologizers saying well it's just they're so sophisticated etc.

There is near zero chance they're so sophisticated that they can assume at 2pm on Monday I will exercise my free will and talk about surf boards for ten minutes (I don't surf) to prove they listen in and they show me ads of it.

The boring reality is ad networks don’t need to, and doing it would be suicidal for them. Recording everyone’s mic 24/7 would mean collecting petabytes of audio per day, transcribing it in real time across hundreds of languages, and indexing it instantly.

If it is technologically feasible, and I’m not even sure it is, it’d be astronomically expensive, technically unwieldy, and flat-out illegal in most jurisdictions. One leak or subpoena and the company would be finished.

What they do have is cheap, legal, structured data: search history, app use, your friends’ activity, shopping records, location, Wi-Fi networks, IP addresses, device profiles, demographic data, social graphs, and probably thousands of other data points. From that they build “look-alike” audiences. Combined with the sheer number of ads served, coincidences are inevitable (and trust me, you don’t notice the poorly targeted ones as much as you think you do)

It only feels personal because you notice it right after you talked about something. The creepy accuracy comes from massive tracking and probability, not secret eavesdropping.

 

[joeblow7777]

The boring reality is ad networks don’t need to, and doing it would be suicidal for them. Recording everyone’s mic 24/7 would mean collecting petabytes of audio per day, transcribing it in real time across hundreds of languages, and indexing it instantly.

If it is technologically feasible, and I’m not even sure it is, it’d be astronomically expensive, technically unwieldy, and flat-out illegal in most jurisdictions. One leak or subpoena and the company would be finished.

What they do have is cheap, legal, structured data: search history, app use, your friends’ activity, shopping records, location, Wi-Fi networks, IP addresses, device profiles, demographic data, social graphs, and probably thousands of other data points. From that they build “look-alike” audiences. Combined with the sheer number of ads served, coincidences are inevitable (and trust me, you don’t notice the poorly targeted ones as much as you think you do)

It only feels personal because you notice it right after you talked about something. The creepy accuracy comes from massive tracking and probability, not secret eavesdropping.

This is the where so many conspiracy theories (should) fall apart. Most of these conspiracies would require resources that would make them impractical and impossible to hide. It's like how people point out that the technology needed to successfully fake the moon landing in 1969 would be more difficult and costly than actually just going to the moon!

 

[pw5a29]

I understand the nature of coincidence but sometimes it’s hard to believe.

I was chatting to a friend about his son in the car for a couple of hours. He was telling me all about the boys drum lessons. The conversation went into all manner of things but included the fact that he bought an electronic drum kit, for reasons, and that he chose ones made by Roland.

We got out of the car, I visited MacRumors and this advert appeared. Bear in mind, I’m not musical, I am highly unlikely to have visited sites that suggest I am, I have cross site trackers disabled. I don’t really do social media apart from this and another niche forum.

Is my iPhone listening to me?

It's not coincidence, it's really fetching information from you and your family/friends.
It's just not listening to you 247.

 

[Tdude96]

The boring reality is ad networks don’t need to, and doing it would be suicidal for them. Recording everyone’s mic 24/7 would mean collecting petabytes of audio per day, transcribing it in real time across hundreds of languages, and indexing it instantly.

If it is technologically feasible, and I’m not even sure it is, it’d be astronomically expensive, technically unwieldy, and flat-out illegal in most jurisdictions. One leak or subpoena and the company would be finished.

What they do have is cheap, legal, structured data: search history, app use, your friends’ activity, shopping records, location, Wi-Fi networks, IP addresses, device profiles, demographic data, social graphs, and probably thousands of other data points. From that they build “look-alike” audiences.

All of this and more. It's not hard for an advertising network to assume that someone is talking to other people about a large recent purchase, and to send out related advertisements to reinforce that you too should purchase a similar item. Proximity can be determined in a bunch of different ways, as-mentioned even a shared wi-fi network. Unfortunately, not all data transmitted from an iPhone is protected by Private Relay. You have to use a VPN for that. So by being on a shared wi-fi network you have all kinds of juicy information passed along like how long you were together, how many other people you know joined you, what time you were there, etc. But it doesn't even take wi-fi. Bluetooth and other technologies will do. Think about the creepy "contact notifications" from a few years back that could give exact proximities accurate within inches and exact timing for people associating together.


iPhone may be the most privacy-centric mass-marketed consumer device, but it's still leaky, especially with a lot of apps available that phone home regularly with analytics that expose all kinds of personal data and identifiers.


There's absolutely no need to listen in on conversations when massive amounts of private, personal information about people is traded freely from many sources and associated to user profiles.

 

[1rottenapple]

I understand the nature of coincidence but sometimes it’s hard to believe.

I was chatting to a friend about his son in the car for a couple of hours. He was telling me all about the boys drum lessons. The conversation went into all manner of things but included the fact that he bought an electronic drum kit, for reasons, and that he chose ones made by Roland.

We got out of the car, I visited MacRumors and this advert appeared. Bear in mind, I’m not musical, I am highly unlikely to have visited sites that suggest I am, I have cross site trackers disabled. I don’t really do social media apart from this and another niche forum.

Is my iPhone listening to me?

This happens all the time to me and my friends and family. It’s creepy as hell. Your talking about a specific thing and all of a sudden you have a YouTube ad or safari ad with what it is you were discussing. For all the privacy crap Apple talks about and how much the respect your privacy I wonder why they don’t even stop this. A few weeks ago I didn’t even search a mattress online. I ended up going to the mattress store bought something. And that afternoon I have ads about mattresses. Come on now.

 

[boswald]

Not even Siri listens well so I'm not scared.

 

[ForkHandles]

Your phone’s not actually “listening.”

If a company were secretly recording conversations through your microphone without consent, that would almost certainly violate wiretapping laws (in the U.S. and most other jurisdictions). More importantly, it’s not even necessary for their business model. The amount of data advertisers already collect (search history, app activity, online purchases, social graphs, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth location, and other metadata) is so detailed and predictive that they don’t need to eavesdrop.

What’s happening is ad networks pool a ton of that data and then push ads. If you or anyone in the car has given Facebook or Google location access, they also probably know you were together, and that’s enough for the algorithm to link you and serve you ads in case you are also in the market or can influence your friend.

So when your buddy (who probably did a good bit of research over multiple day/weeks) searched for drums, the system flagged you as someone in his circle and sent you ads too. My wife gets ads for stuff I search (and vice versa, if I turn off my ad blocker). Even if I’ve never spoken to her about the product. Sometimes she’ll joke “don’t even think about buying that new camera” when she start seeings ads for one of my hobbies show up in her feed.

I have a friend who works for a major data firm; he has told me that he thinks if people actually understood how much (and what) data they had on people there would be literal riots. 😬

I agree with everything you’re saying.

The only mystery to me is that he bought the drums two years ago. I don’t use social media apart from this and one other forum. I don’t even have accounts. I’m only linked to the friend by WhatsApp.

The most plausible explanation is usually the best. In this I think the plethora of data that the internet steals from us, is enough for one advert in a month to be so immediate that it appears to be prescient.

 

[SebCohen]

I loathe ads. I despise them. And anyone who does this that I notice, I simply avoid buying their stuff. That’s a bit draconian, but yeah, try to. I never ever never ever EVER buy stuff from within apps or by clicking on a banner or such. If there’s something you need, go look for it and you WILL find it cheaper and get it faster.

On the listening thing…sure, it "seems" so…and it should be clearly stated as illegal by law.

Wish Apple would let us "sandbox" individual apps such as they couldn’t run in background whatsoever. You’d simply lock them down and it would be as they were not installed.