Is Facebook listening to me? What has been said, can you turn off microphone access on your phone

• Meta has denied it is listening to your conversations for adverts.
• It comes after a media company (CMG) claimed to be using “Active Listening” software to capture data from “our conversations”.
• Leaked documents showed CMG listing Facebook as a “client”.

Have you ever had that experience where you are sat around chatting with your family or in the pub with your mates shooting the breeze and you mention say air fryers (for example), then suddenly next time you open Facebook or other apps on your phone you spot adverts for the exact thing you were just talking about. It’s freaky isn’t it and while it probably feels like an eerie coincidence, could it be that your phone is really listening to you? 

In truth, the answer is murky and the full picture remains unclear. But in a recent report, a media conglomerate is alleged to have claimed to use an “active listening” software to provide more targeted ads. 

Meta (owner of Facebook), Google, Apple have all officially stated in the past that they do not listen to your conversations and use that information to serve you with adverts. Yet many of us may remain paranoid about the possibility - after all it sounds like the premise of an episode of Black Mirror doesn’t it. 

Is my phone listening to me? 

Simply put, yes your phone can listen to you. Many handsets now come with voice assistants (such as Siri for Apple owners) and they are listening out for prompts so they can jump in and help. 

And some other apps can also listen in through the microphones inside your phone. But before you recall in horror, it is perfectly legal - as long as you agreed to the terms and conditions when you installed the app. 

In your privacy settings inside your Android, Apple, or other phone, you will have the option to disable microphone access for apps. You can switch it off for all your apps if you so wish, meaning they can no longer listen in. 

Does Facebook listen to you for ads? 

Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has repeatedly denied listening to users' conversations in order to sell targeted ads based on what has been overheard. On its website, Meta explains: “No. We understand that sometimes ads can be so specific, it seems like we must be listening to your conversations through your microphone, but we're not. We only use your microphone if you've given us permission and are actively using a feature that requires the microphone.

“If you want more control over how your information influences the ads that we show you, there are a few places to do that. You can view some ad-specific settings in your ad preferences, or you can view your information and remove things that you don't want us to use.” 

However the company was forced to again deny that it was using customers’ conversations to sell ads after a company called Cox Media Group (CMG) - an American conglomerate - was claiming to be using an artificial intelligence powered “active listening” software to capture data from “our conversations”. In a leaked document obtained by 404 Media, CMG claimed that Facebook, Google and Amazon were clients - but did not say if they were using the software. 

A spokesperson for Meta pushed back in a statement, Futurism’s The Byte reports. “Meta does not use your phone's microphone for ads and we've been public about this for years. We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data,” they said. 

404 Media also reached out to Google and the tech giant removed the media group from the site for its "Partners Program”. 

Data protection advocate Mariano delli Santi in an interview with The Guardian from 2021 told the paper that advertisers know plenty without having to snoop on your conversations. She explained: “Well, there have been fringe cases where apps have been found to turn up your mic. But the point is, advertisers don’t need to listen to know everything about you.” 

Why do adverts follow me around the internet? 

Since we are on the subject of ads, have you ever looked at something on Amazon and then had it follow you around the internet appearing in adverts even after you’ve left the website. The reason for this is actually quite simple, it is because of cookies - no not the edible ones, the internet kind. 

If you have enabled cookies by hitting the allow access button when loading up a website, this enables an ad system to track your browsing behaviour and serve up what it thinks are “relevant” adverts. So this is why it may feel as if a specific advert is following you around the web like a bad smell. 

But for more on why ads keep reappearing when you are surfing the web, Leo from Ask Leo has a great video on the topic. It is about 7 minutes long and can be watched on his YouTube channel here.