Is your phone listening to your private conversations? Two in three Indians complain their phone is 'eavesdropping' on them

As per a report, Google has agreed to pay 68 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it was secretly listening to people’s private conversations or chats on their phones.

Two in three Indians have complained of their phone listening to their private conversations, a study has found out.

The intrusion of Google applications into private conversations and chats rose from 53 percent to 67 percent in the last four years, raising concerns around data protection.

For many Indians, it is not uncommon to find advertisements or related posts on products or services on social media channels after they had spoken about it privately to a friend or family using a phone call or over text.

As per a media report, Google has agreed to pay 68 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it was secretly listening to people’s private conversations or chats on their phones and then directing the data to targeted advertisers.

Another lawsuit was slapped against Meta in an US district court for violating chat privacy on WhatsApp. 

The survey conducted by the LocalCircles has found out about 89 percent of smartphone users in India have given their contact list access to WhatsApp, 54 percent have given it to Facebook or Instagram, and 31 percent have given access to payment apps like Paytm and PhonePe.

What did the study find?

The researchers wanted to understand how people’s personal data was being shared without consent over the past one year, with most users unaware of why some app permissions were needed when they installed them. Many of them were giving permissions without understanding what they were agreeing to.

The survey received over 63,000 responses from 346 districts of India, with 65 percent of respondents being men and other 35 percent women. About 45 percent of the respondents were from tier 1 cities and others from tier two, three and four.

The respondents were primarily asked three questions:

• What are all the applications you have given contact list access to?

• Have you given access to your microphone for any apps?

• Did you have an experience where a product or service advertisement popped out of nowhere after you were speaking or texting about it to someone?

Among the respondents, about 89 percent smartphone users had given the contact list access to WhatsApp, about 82 percent had given the microphone access to applications which used features like camera or voice recorder including Instagram, Facebook, Zoom meetings and others.

Out of 12,960 responses, two-third respondents claimed they had instances where a product or service ad popped up just after they spoke about it to someone.

Likewise, out of 13,000 respondents, 76 percent admitted they saw advertisements of products or services they had texted to someone on Whatsapp or other chat applications.

Protecting oneself from data breach

The study concluded that most phone applications were only taking secondary consent from the users with not making them fully know where or how this information could be used. The following are some safety measures one can adopt to prevent breach of data:

• Disable unnecessary microphone access to phone applications.

• Stop apps from running in the background.

• Regularly update operating systems to disable malicious software.

• In location settings, restrict most application to “allow only while using the app”

• Avoid downloading suspicious applications.

• One can also turn off the Google assistant.

• One can use privacy apps.