Facebook is using your phone to listen to everything you say, professor claims

Facebook concedes its app listens to whatever is happening around it

Is Facebook eavesdropping on your conversations? A University of South Florida professor seems to think so.

Professor Kelli Burns claims Facebook app might be using smartphones to gather data on what people are talking about to show relevant ads.

“Facebook could be eavesdropping on people’s conversations all of the time,” Burns said.



Facebook has conceded that its app does listen to whatever is happening around it, but only as a way of seeing what people are listening to or watching and suggesting that they post about it – and not otherwise.

However, Professor Burns concludes that the tool appears to be using the audio it gathers not simply to help out users, but might actually be doing so to listen in to discussions.

She added that in order to test her theory, she discussed certain topics around the phone and then found that the site appeared to show relevant ads.



Facebook has explicitly stated on its help pages that it doesn’t record conversations, but that it does use the audio to identify what is happening around the phone.

“Facebook does not use microphone audio to inform advertising or News Feed stories in any way," a spokesperson told The Independent.

Turning off the microphone in a phone’s settings is relatively easy, and since it can be done at the level of the operating system, doing so will mean that Facebook can’t turn it on even if it wanted to.

This article originally appeared on The Independent.