How to test if your smart phone is spying on you

In today’s digital landscape, data privacy and security are top concerns for users, especially those relying on smartphones, as these devices may inadvertently record conversations and transmit data to remote servers.

If you’re worried about potential eavesdropping by your smartphone, security researchers at NordVPN have developed a simple experiment to help determine if your device might be monitoring your conversations.

Here’s how to test it: Choose a topic you’ve never searched for on your mobile phone—something entirely new to your device’s search and browsing history. Discuss this topic with a friend or family member while your phone is nearby, but ensure that you do not use any device to search for information about this topic beforehand.

After a day or two, check whether advertisements related to your conversation topic appear on your browsing apps or social media platforms. For example, if you mentioned something like travel plans to a specific destination, keep an eye out for ads promoting flights, hotels, or travel packages to that location.

If you start seeing ads related to the topic you only mentioned in conversation, it may indicate that your device is “listening” to you.

Now, this raises an important question:

Is it legal for your smartphone to monitor your conversations?

In most cases, this type of surveillance would violate data privacy and security laws in many regions. However, if you use a virtual assistant like Apple’s Siri or Android’s Gemini, you may have unknowingly given consent for certain types of listening activity. Voice-activated assistants rely on continual background listening to provide instant responses to commands. This listening capability means that, even when idle, your smartphone’s virtual assistant may be capturing audio to improve the speed and relevance of its responses.

To protect your privacy, you might consider disabling these virtual assistants. Regularly clearing your voice command history and using a virtual private network (VPN) can also enhance your security, as many VPNs offer browsing tools that minimize tracking. However, it’s essential to remember that we may never fully know the extent to which data centers collect or manage information gathered through these platforms.