Is your phone listening to you? #shorts | The Hated One
Your phone is definitely listening. But not to you per se, but to your surroundings. Using access to the microphones on your phone, apps can listen to inaudible ultrasonic frequencies typically in the range between 18 and 20 kHz.
They are listening for audio beacons inside other devices nearby and transmit small amount of information at the rate of about 10-20 bits per second. That’s enough to transfer identifiable information about your device or what ads you see on your desktop and commercials you watch on TV.
This high-frequency sound transmission can capture data within a 65-feet radius, or about 20 meters and it can communicate even with devices that are not connected to the internet.
This is called ultrasonic cross-device tracking. It’s using basic physical properties of moving components in modern electronic devices that are impossible to disable or opt out of. Even if you revoke microphone permission, ultra-sonic transmission can happen between gyroscope sensors which require no permission on iPhone and can only be revoked in Android developer settings and on GrapheneOS. Speaker-to-speaker transmission is also fully capable of ultra-sonic cross-device tracking and the only way to stop it is to desolder your speakers.