Is your phone listening to your conversations? Paranoid's guide to settings you can change

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  • Pay attention to settings

    Pay attention to settings

    If you see an ad pop up on your phone shortly after you've had a verbal conversation about the same item, you might suspect that your phone is listening in to your conversation.

    Although location services, browsing history, and cookies are much more effective ways that advertisers can keep track of us, there are some settings you can enable on your devices to reassure yourself that the apps on your phone have only the permissions you have set.

    Photo by: Bstad

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

  • Use the DuckDuckGo browser

    Use the DuckDuckGo browser

    Cookies are saved on your smartphone just as they are on your PC. If you are worried about cookies from one browsing session being read by some of your other apps, you can use a browser such as DuckDuckGo.

    This browser lets you clear all tabs and data after each browsing session so you can guarantee that apps can't gain any extra information from you that you are unaware of.

    Photo by: Eileen Brown

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

  • Chrome privacy

    Chrome privacy

    If Chrome is your default browser on Android, there are a few settings you can check for your peace of mind. In Settings > Privacy you can enable Do Not Track to make sure your browsing journey is yours alone.

    Photo by: Eileen Brown

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

  • Chrome: Browsing data

    Chrome: Browsing data

    Clicking on Clear browsing data will ensure that your habits are not remembered by the browser. You can choose which browsing data such as browsing history, cookies, and site data you wish to keep -- and which to delete.

    You can even select the time range you want to ensure that only the last week's worth of data is erased.

    Photo by: Eileen Brown

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

  • iOS privacy

    iOS privacy

    If you have an iPhone, you can deny permission on an app-by-app basis. Click Settings > Privacy > Microphone.

    The list of apps that have requested access to the microphone will appear on the list so you can allow or deny access per app. Screenshot is from an iPhone 6S.

    Photo by: Twitter / @gregor_suttie

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

  • Location

    Location

    If you are concerned about apps having access to your location, you can switch location off for every app on your phone. 

    Be aware that many of your favorite apps might not work as intended.

    Photo by: Eileen Brown

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

  • App-specific permissions

    App-specific permissions

    You can view a list of each permission that you originally granted to each app when you installed it from the store.

    Photo by: Eileen Brown

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

  • Switching permissions on and off

    Switching permissions on and off

    You can drill-down and give specific apps permissions (or not) to use the microphone or other features that you choose.

    Photo by: Eileen Brown

    Caption by: Eileen Brown

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Are you suspicious about your phone? Have a look at these settings to put your mind at ease.

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Pay attention to settings

If you see an ad pop up on your phone shortly after you've had a verbal conversation about the same item, you might suspect that your phone is listening in to your conversation.

Although location services, browsing history, and cookies are much more effective ways that advertisers can keep track of us, there are some settings you can enable on your devices to reassure yourself that the apps on your phone have only the permissions you have set.

Caption by: Eileen Brown

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Related Topics:

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