Are your apps listening to you?

Have you ever found yourself saying this sentence when you see an ad in your News Feed?

"That's so weird, I was just thinking about that today!"

You might have mentioned it to your partner or friends, maybe you just overheard somebody talk about it, sometimes it seems like the apps are reading your mind. No matter what it is, suddenly your feed is full of adverts for the product. It can be a bit spooky and unnerving to suddenly see your conversations reflected back at you through your social apps, especially if you don't remember ever searching for the product in question online.

Everything has a camera and a microphone these days, and we are all more reliant on our smart phones than ever. It's a logical conclusion to jump to that the apps are listening in to you even when they're not open and they're tailoring your ads to what subjects they pick up on. Understandably, most people don't like the feeling that big tech companies could be listening in every hour of the day. People value their privacy, and rightly so.

Fortunately, both Android and Apple were quick to respond to these concerns, and all modern devices offer the capability as standard to customise which apps have access to our data, and whether they are allowed to access features such as the inbuilt camera and microphone. However...laptops have microphones and cameras too. What if the ad companies got access to those?

Microsoft have risen to the challenge, and are in the testing period for a new feature in Windows 11 called Privacy Auditing that will allow users to see which apps have accessed devices such as webcams and microphones, as well as sensitive items such as your data, documents, pictures and other files. It will also create a comprehensive log to keep track of which apps accessed the data, and when it has happened.

We're looking forward to the full rollout of this feature, so people will be able to see at a glance if there have been any potential data leaks.

In the meantime, if you're concerned about data security or your app permissions on your phone, feel free to get in touch!