Is my Phone Really Listening to Me?

Your phone is designed to listen. Without a working microphone, it wouldn't be a phone at all. But the real question is: Is your phone listening all the time? And if so, where does all that data go, and who can access it?

The answer? It depends.

🎧 When Your Phone Listens

If you’ve granted an app permission to access your microphone, it can listen whenever it’s open — even when it’s running in the background. For example, if you open an app called “InstaPicture” to record video content, then switch to another app, InstaPicture can still access your microphone until you fully close it.

What happens to that audio? According to the terms and conditions you agreed to (likely without reading the fine print), companies can collect and use that data for “marketing purposes.” This often means selling your data to advertisers.

And it doesn’t stop there. Once a company has your data, it can sell or share it over and over with any other company willing to pay for it. From there, those companies can share it again, and the cycle continues. Suddenly, your private conversations are fueling marketing campaigns you never asked for.

🤖 Voice Assistants Are Always Listening, Too

If you use Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, your phone is listening all the time. It has to be — otherwise, it couldn’t recognize activation phrases like “Hey Siri” or “Okay Google.” While it’s not actively recording or sending your conversations anywhere until it’s triggered, it is constantly monitoring for those keywords. And let’s face it, it’s not unheard of to be having a normal conversation with somebody when a voice assistant bizarrely activates after somehow interpreting something you said as a keyword.

Once activated, voice assistants send full audio recordings and additional location and other data back to companies like Apple, Google, or Amazon. What they do with that data depends on terms and conditions, privacy policies, and even internal company policies — all of which can change at any time.

🔒 Why This Matters

Ever wondered why spies in movies remove their phone batteries and leave them outside secure areas? Because they know their devices are listening, even when it seems like they aren’t.

You may not be a secret agent, but protecting your privacy is just as important. Fortunately, you can limit what your phone hears with a few simple steps.

🔑 How to Limit Your Phone’s Microphone Access

📲 On iPhone:

To disable microphone access for apps:

1. Go to Settings.

2. Tap Privacy.

3. Tap Microphone.

4. Toggle off the apps you don’t want accessing your microphone.

To disable Siri’s microphone monitoring:

1. Go to Settings.

2. Tap Siri & Search.

3. Deactivate these three options:

   • Listen for “Hey Siri”

   • Press side button for Siri

   • Allow Siri when locked

4. Confirm by tapping Turn Off Siri in the pop-up.

🤖 On Android:

To disable microphone access for apps:

1. Open Settings.

2. Tap Apps.

3. Select the app you want to adjust.

4. Tap Permissions.

5. Turn off Microphone access.

To deactivate Google Assistant’s microphone monitoring:

1. Open the Google app.

2. Tap your profile image in the top right.

3. Select Settings.

4. Tap Google Assistant.

5. Tap General.

6. Select Deactivate the Google Assistant feature.

📌 The Bottom Line

Yes, your phone is listening. But you have some control over how much it hears. By managing app permissions and disabling voice assistants when you don’t need them, you can reclaim your privacy and keep your conversations yours.

If you have questions, if you’d like to see specific topics taken up, or if you have general feedback, I’d like to hear from you! Email: [email protected].

Please share this newsletter with friends, family, colleagues, and everybody else you know. Empowering individuals and small businesses by democratizing basic cyber safety information so everyone can be safe without having to get professional level certification is the whole point.

Anybody receiving this that has not yet subscribed, please do so! Subscribers can also access all prior newsletters at: https://newsletter.thecybersafety.company.

Peter Oram
Chief Cyber Safety Officer