The rise of technology brought about plenty of concerns for privacy, but while it was quite hard to comprehend in the beginning how far these concerns should go, we now a have a very good grasp on what we are giving up or in exchange for the technology we are receiving. One of the pieces of technology that should worry us the most as it is permanently attached to our hands is our phone.
Our phones are an extension of us and contain almost every single piece of information about us we can think of. Our bank app, conversations with friends and family, browsing history, photos, and even our location in real time. All of these can be used against us and a good hacker known what to exploit in your device to turn those very helpful tools that already listen to us into their own personal mirror into our lives.
After all, we all know our technology is always listening to us, and while the thought of the parent company having access to all that information is scary, it is perhaps scarier to know that anyone could use those same access doors to gather information about us.
The different ways your phone spies on you
The most common way that hackers use to spy on you is through spyware, as it operates in the background without your awareness, tracking your online behavior and harvesting personal data. It can capture banking details, credit card numbers, login credentials, conversations, and browsing history. One of the most common ways that spyware can infect your phone is through downloading a questionable app from the Play Store.
Detecting spyware is challenging, but certain warning signs may suggest an infection. Unexpected pop-ups, strange ads, and unusual messages or emails could indicate its presence. Affected devices may also experience sluggish performance, frequent app crashes, or random restarts. To check for spyware, review app permissions and inspect downloaded files for anything suspicious. If the problem persists, a factory reset may be necessary to remove the threat.
But not all is lost and you can still take preventative measures to ensure that even if spyware is installed the amount of “ready” information it can gather is limited. The most important one is to review your phone’s app permissions. Some apps may have requested access to features of your phone like location despite it not being necessary for the app to work. Revoking these unnecessary permissions is the first step.
The first general permission can be revoked from all your apps by going to settings, tapping the privacy icon, selecting the permissions manager, choosing the type of permissions (access to location, for example) and checking the apps that have access to the permissions without a reason. Then select “do not allow” to remove unnecessary permissions.
With that first step accomplished, the next one is to figure out which apps are constantly listening to you and disabling those features as well. The company that does it the most is unsurprisingly Google. Some of their services such as Assistant, Search, and Maps may store recordings of your voice interactions. If you prefer not to have these saved, you can disable the voice and audio activity feature in your settings. You can also give a second look to Google’s use of your data, as it will allow you to delete your timeline data, change how your profile appears to others, and remove access to third-party services, all key when protecting your data.
Last, but by no means least, switch off your location tracking. Many apps will ask to track your location in the background even after you close them, which serves their goals perfectly but drains your battery and can give anyone insights to your patterns and location in real time, so disabling this will be the thing that gives you the most peace of mind in the long term.