Is my phone listening to me?

Let’s start off with voice assistants. They need to hear wake words like “Hey Siri” or “OK Google”, which means the microphone is technically always on standby. That part is true.

What isn’t true is that your phone is recording everything you say and uploading it somewhere for ad targeting. That would be wildly illegal, incredibly inefficient and very hard to hide given how closely apps and operating systems are examined.

Most of the time, it’s just observing your searches, the apps you use, what you click on, what you scroll past, how long you linger on a post, where you are, what you buy, who you message and sometimes who those people are connected to. That data is enough to make some very good guesses about what you might be interested in next. You mention something out loud, then later see an advert for it and your brain joins the dots in the most alarming way possible.

There’s also confirmation bias at play. You probably talk about hundreds of things that never show up in adverts. You just don’t notice those. The one time it lines up, it sticks in your head and suddenly your phone feels suspicious.

Apps can also share data between themselves, as long as you’ve given permission, often without realising it. Location data, browsing behaviour and app activity can all be used to build an accurate picture of you without ever needing to listen to a word you say.

If you want to be cautious, you can check which apps have microphone access in your settings and revoke it for anything that doesn’t need it. You can also limit ad tracking and personalised ads. It won’t make you invisible, but it does turn the volume down on how targeted things feel.

So no, your phone isn’t sat there quietly recording your chats and plotting against you. It’s just very good at pattern recognition and humans are very good at jumping to conclusions when technology feels a bit too clever for comfort.