Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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How much proof is there that smart tvs and phones listen to you? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 days ago by bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Like, we all know they're listening , but can we provide proof?

My friend was complaining about all the new super surveillance that will be government required in cars after 2027, and I said to him dude you have a stock android, you use every AI slop feature, you use a smart TV on your unsecured network, and uses x every day. They have everything they could possibly need on him. Oh and he posts questionable things to fb daily under his real name.

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[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Neither of those sources really disagree with what I said, though I do appreciate you adding the additional context because those things are worth knowing about

Smart speaker research: Security researchers have documented potential vulnerabilities in smart speakers and voice assistants.

• Mobile security: Documented cases of spyware accessing device microphones have been reported.

• Enterprise security: Organizations have reported incidents involving unauthorized audio access.

• Application permissions: Studies have shown some applications requesting unnecessary microphone access.

None of those are really the widespread, passive, undisclosed listening for advertising data that people imagine there to be and that OP appeared to be asking about. The google and apple lawsuit is about google assistant and siri triggering unintentionally, which is a feature that discloses its always listening which I mentioned at the very beginning

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/facebook-doesnt-need-listen-through-your-microphone-serve-you-creepy-ads old article but the eff is pretty reputable

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/features/no-your-iphone-isnt-listening-to-you-heres-but-the-truth-is-even-worse/ from 2025