Audio-targeting and AI - what are our smartphones listening to?

Maddie Fisher

MF909217@ohio.edu

Image sourced from Pixabay

Does your phone have digital assistant software like Siri, Cortana, or Alexa? Then chances are, your phone is listening to you – and it’s completely legal. What started as a tool to assist smartphone users with their day-to-day tasks has turned into an opportunity for advertisers to target audiences specifically. 

Say you open Siri to ask about nearby gyms, and then suddenly, you see fitness ads all over the internet. That is only one of the millions of examples that machine learning has pried its way into the minds of smartphone users. Norton says to “think of your smartphone as a verbal search engine.” Every time you use digital assistant software, you provide data that will be collected and will likely be used for individualized advertisements. 

While advertising companies can use the data collected from intelligent assistant interactions, background audio-targeting is still an illegal invasion of privacy due to user permissions settings. While spyware or malware does exist to collect illegal data, unaffected phones are not supposed to interpret background noise. However, massive rumors are circulating in disagreement. 

The Washington Post says that “it’s an old wives’ tale” that our phones are always listening. Since big data companies have access to nearly every user interaction online, they don’t need to listen. They know what users are searching for, what posts they’re looking at on social media (and for how long), purchasing histories, and more. “Ask Help Desk: No, your phone isn’t listening to your conversations. Seriously.” uses the example of a smartphone owner having a conversation about Disney World and suddenly seeing online ads. While that may seem like an eerie coincidence, perhaps that user looked at flights to Orlando after the conversation, and AI technology used that data to recommend a popular nearby activity, which would ultimately be Disney World. 

We now know that everything we do online contributes to our digital footprint. Big data companies can track everything we do online and use it to target us in advertisements directly. In addition, the development of AI in smartphones has contributed to data companies knowing users individually. While that may make the public feel uneasy, total privacy in the digital world doesn’t exist. It may be unethical, but it is our reality. Innovative technology has evolved the marketing world, and there is no sign of that slowing down.