Was driving to work this morning with Google Maps on. a journey of 11 miles / 25 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, it jumped to 310 miles / 7 hours and was routing me across the Irish Sea to Belfast, down the east coast of Ireland and back up through Wales. This happened during a news item on 5Live about the Northern Ireland Accord. I’m assuming that the phone picked up the words Northern Ireland and added it to the route.
My old phone was a bugger for random outbursts but this is the first time the new one has done it and the first time I can link the it to something that was said at exactly the same time.
Tin foil hat, or are our phones eaves dropping?
Mine is always listening. That's part of the design and key to how I often use it. We have a couple of Home Hubs too and they'll often react to certain unplanned wordstreams too.
You can tell your phone to listen to you. But they don’t other wise.
People have done experiments on this. For example playing a recording of people talking about cats to a phone for 3 days and seeing if your more likely to get cat related adverts. I think they also did something about battery drain
No.
HTH
Was this using Android Auto/Apple Car Play?
I think in the setting when plugged into the car, you can specify if you want it to be listening all the time so you don't have to touch the mic button to communicate with the phone.
I was using Google maps week before last for the final few miles of a journey to an appointment in Liverpool, a school in Cornwall was mentioned on the news and the phone very unhelpfully re routed to there!
New phone that I didn't have fully set up and I don't normally use Google maps but it was definitely "listening" on that occasion.
...what annoys me about this is that my wife is deeply suspicious of google smart speakers, banished on the grounds they're listening (I know they're only listening for their 'on' phrase, not any other words/noises), but is not equally suspicious of her phone. Or our sonos. I have no way, stratagem or courage for communicating to her there's not a right lot of difference
I've had the same happen as the OP & certain discussions in our house are held behind closed doors with no phones in the room 🤔
I’ve had the same happen as the OP & certain discussions in our house are held behind closed doors with no phones in the room 🤔
...which would make life inconvenient, hence my not having much interest in surfacing the issue.
And I've no idea why I keep getting all these anti-farting pill ads.
Ssssh; you never know who or what is listening...
I will just say ‘Vintage Escorts’ 😶
I will just say ‘Vintage Escorts’
The Wayne Rooney Defence?
IANAL
Whilst on holiday one of the group started asking me about Bromptom bikes and what I knew about them, so we spent a good half an hour or so talking about Bromptoms etc. The following day and further I was hit with adverts and posts about Bromptom bikes (no internet searching was carried out, only verbal conversation).
This type of event has happened a few times over the past..............coincidence??
I’ve had the same happen as the OP & certain discussions in our house are held behind closed doors with no phones in the room 🤔
Best you have those conversations though, otherwise when Bonnie gets home you're getting a divorce.
@Mounty_73 if your friend had been looking at Bromptons online then FB would serve you those ads due to your connection.
@Mounty_73 if your friend had been looking at Bromptons online then FB would serve you those ads due to your connection.
She has never been on Faceache, she popped into her local bike shop to have a look at the bikes.
Whilst on holiday one of the group started asking me about Bromptom bikes and what I knew about them, so we spent a good half an hour or so talking about Bromptoms etc.
often the ads and promoted posts you receive on social media reflect the interests of the people people you're connected to as much as your own search history. So if you had links to members of that group online then the Brompton conversation could be linked to their Internet history rather than yours
No.
HTH
This.
(I know they’re only listening for their ‘on’ phrase, not any other words/noises)
And this.
if your friend had been looking at Bromptons online then FB would serve you those ads due to your connection.
often the ads and promoted posts you receive on social media reflect the interests of the people people you’re connected to as much as your own search history. So if you had links to members of that group online then the Brompton conversation could be linked to their Internet history rather than yours
These too.
And you all missed the most obvious one: Coincidences happen. Have you never read a book and someone in the room says the exact word or phrase you've just read? Been talking about something, then it's come up on the radio? A couple of months back I was listening to music at home, got in the car and the track continued playing; it took me a moment to realise, I'd been listening to Spotify at home and the car was playing DAB. Now, how many times does it not happen? This is the "alien life is highly likely because Numbers" argument.
In any case...
I'm sure I read an article about this and the answer was basically no they're not listening to you but often the algorithms dictating what you see are so accurate that it often feels like they are.
It sounds like the maps things is maybe a specific setting for making routing easier that you need to turn off rather than a passive listening thing?
I get subliminal brainwaves to "Buy more Cheese",I think it's my phone sending me messages on a special wavelength or Mrs FH whispering in my ear while I sleep.
She likes cheese a lot more than me.
I'm pretty sure they do. Often discussed something, in the office or home, and shortly after 'adverts' for similar items are either on your phone feeds or pop up on web adverts.
...
In any case,
Very clever people in cybersecurity spheres analyse these devices with rabid enthusiasm. Even a junior network engineer should be able to drop WireShark and listen to what's going on over their own Wi-Fi network, this isn't difficult. The incentive to bust Amazon / Google / Apple for spying would be high. If they were listening in, they'd have been caught by now.
It is possible that you've accidentally said something they've misheard as a wake phrase. I get this sometimes, I'll be in mid-conversation and Alexa will start chunnering on about the invention of the tea bag or the migration patterns of gazelles or something. I only expect this to get worse as I'm about to start working with someone called Alex.
It may also possible to configure always-on listening, often wrapped up in some euphemism like improving voice recognition accuracy. What corporations actually do with that data vs. what they say they will, be that intentionally or accidentally, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.
Consider though, if they were listening in secret, then giving the game away by using that information to reroute your maps when you hadn't asked it to would be a really stupid thing to do.
Often discussed something, in the office or home, and shortly after ‘adverts’ for similar items are either on your phone feeds or pop up on web adverts.
It shouldn't be a shock that you're getting adverts for things that you're interested in talking about.
Try it. Do it in isolation. Come up with something random like kayaks and spend the evening talking about it. Don't google them, don't go near a computer. Obviously this won't work if you're a kayaker, and don't use kayak because I've said it three times now and there's a potential algorithmical link back to you.
Consider though, if they were listening in secret, then giving the game away by using that information to reroute your maps when you hadn’t asked it to would be a really stupid thing to do.
Well you say that but think about it this way:
It sounds really dumb if it routed him to NI and gave the game away, but what if the sequence of events wasn't the way it sounds and HTS busted them first and it then immediately rerouted him into the sea? The events are close enough together that he thinks it routed him first but really...
That or chat gpt has realised that a yet to happen seemingly random occurrence in HTS' life is an existential threat to AI.
I mean, the reasons Google maps might want to kill him are endless.
The big worry is when the phones rise up and take over the World. They'll know all our secrets and we'll not stand a chance!
It's gonna happen. Mark my words.
was browsing Facebook while eating breakfast at the cattle market once. An old chap I hadn't seen for years stops in passing and we exchange pleasantries. He tells me he went to Hereford Races for his 80th as a treat. He moves on, I go back to browsing, and Wham, the very next advert on Facebook is for Hereford Race course. I have never had one previously and nbot had one since. Horse Racing is probably the last thing on the planet I would ever be interested in.
Coincidence?
The big worry is when the phones rise up and take over the World.
Like with the Daleks, I reckon stairs will save us...
The big worry is when the phones rise up and take over the World. They’ll know all our secrets and we’ll not stand a chance!
It’s gonna happen. Mark my words.
Like with the Daleks, I reckon stairs will save us…
Nah, it's already happened, it's like a cross between invasion of the body snatchers and the shuffling zombies of 50s B movies.
Easy to deal with though, just put a sign that says "free wifi" in the middle of a deep pit.
Today they are trying to make you drive to Ireland, tomorrow they'll be jumping through your window and putting a cap in yo ass.
I don't trust memory foam mattresses.
I'm not so sure. Guy at work was explaining to another one about a film a younger employee used to love when he was a kid, Balto a cartoon about a husky. 20 minutes later the guy had details of the film come up on his Facebook feed. For me that's far too random to be a coincidence.
I only expect this to get worse as I’m about to start working with someone called Alex.
a large chunk of my working week is dealing with google integration. I usually unplug the google home that's in my office.
. Guy at work was explaining to another one about a film a younger employee used to love when he was a kid, Balto a cartoon about a husky. 20 minutes later the guy had details of the film come up on his Facebook feed. For me that’s far too random to be a coincidence.
That's probably because the other guy had searched for it ten minutes ago.
Cougar is like some kind of coincidence conspiracy theorist on this subject 😀
Yup exactly too much of a coincidence but it’s not because you were talking about an obscure film.
So as a person who has worked on phone design and also CPU design for phones.
Yes they are always listening, but not in the way you think, as Cougar says above one of the low power AI cores is listening for the attention/wake phrase. If it gets that it then wakes up a compute core, generates the magic numbers, sends that to the internet to decode and makes an attempt at answering what it thinks your question is. The raw voice data never leaves your phone.
If they were listening to everything you said all the time you would get about 10 minutes of battery life. The whole phone design is based around the compute cores spending most of their time asleep!
The coincidences above are almost all certainly based on location tracking. Facebook etc spend a lot of time tracking where you physically are, and if someone "near" you searches for something in a way they intercept they assume that you are possibly having a discussion and then change their advert weighting!
I’m assuming that the phone picked up the words Northern Ireland and added it to the route
It would have to have thought you said 'give me directions to Belfast' or whatever. No-one would program a tool to route you to somewhere you'd mentioned in passing. That would be absolute mayhem.
Horse Racing is probably the last thing on the planet I would ever be interested in.
If you were with a large group of people it is quite possible that someone else had just searched for it and it clocked that you were in the same location so gave you the advert.
Cougar is like some kind of coincidence conspiracy theorist on this subject 😀
Maybe that's what I want you to think...
The coincidences above are almost all certainly based on location tracking.
I completely forgot about GPS, that's a great shout.
Even if we assume they are not listening, the location tracking, friend relevant searches (probably in combination with location to see you were together at that time) is also deeply worrying, and why Meta keeps getting into trouble with data protection regulators.
That level of use of personal data is something we should all be concerned about and hold the companies to account, but we won't due to convenience.
Oh, absolutely.
"Is my device listening to me?" is the wrong question.
Facebook on my phone listens to me despite me limiting permissions to it.
Facebook on my phone listens to me despite me limiting permissions to it.
If you've any proof of that I'd suggest suing them, ideally in the US where they're based, as you'll have a very comfortable life off the back of that payout.
Whilst on holiday one of the group started asking me about Bromptom bikes and what I knew about them, so we spent a good half an hour or so talking about Bromptoms etc. The following day and further I was hit with adverts and posts about Bromptom bikes (no internet searching was carried out, only verbal conversation).
This type of event has happened a few times over the past…………..coincidence??
They don't NEED to listen if both of you were in the same location and one then went and did a search/post/whatever later. You don't even need to be sharing the location if your accelerometer is switched on and you are for example on the same tour bus (for example) but if one of you is sharing location then the other just shared it via accelerometer data or even consider a 3rd person on the same tour bus who's opted to share (or failed to find where to turn it off) or you both used or even detected the same Wifi.
You also presumably at some point in the past searched or posted or had an email etc. about Brompton bikes
As an example my kid once asked Siri to call grandma (not in his contacts as grandma) .. about 1001 ways it worked it out. Damned clever but ...
As a counter example the kid got a wart and I was discussing with his mother... came back to the computer in another room and got wart treatment ads. However when I did check someone (mother) at the same IP/Wifi who gets stuff delivered to the same address etc. HAD done a google or yahoo search.
