Your smartphone is listening everything! Here’s how you can stop it

Smartphone is technically always listening to your conversations along with Google Assistant

Tech Desk - Jul 19, 2024

An undated image showing a man holding smartphone. — Unsplash

Have you ever noticed ads popping up on websites and social media feeds about something you’ve just talked about? If so, you might find this news shocking: your smartphone is always listening to you.

While Google might not be listening if you are an iPhone user, it certainly is if you use an Android device. Your smartphone is technically always listening, with Google Assistant active to pick up the ‘wake words’ it’s programmed to recognise and start carrying out voice commands.

You can take several steps to stop your smartphone from listening in on your conversations. Gadinsider has provided a step-by-step guide to disable the listening option:

Go to Settings and tap the Google option.
Select ‘Manage your Google Account’.
Go to the Google My Activity page and click on Web & App Activity.
There’s an option to ‘Include voice and audio activity.’ Uncheck it and select 'Stop saving'.

Taking these measures should help stop your smartphone from listening. As more smartphones start to listen in on us all the time, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to understand where all the data is going, since every company wants to connect to its cloud service.