The One About Google Voice by the Independent
June 3rd, 2016I occasionally use the voice feature on my Android phone, so I went to look at the recordings on Google, which the article below explains how to do.
Indeed, the audio is archived.
The article implies that Android is transmitting audio without the user initiating the voice feature.
While I don’t doubt that’s a possibility (see below), from looking at the list of audio sessions in Google’s history of my use of the feature, I don’t see any indication that it recorded any random conversations.
That said, I have definitely been targeted for audio surveillance via my mobile phone one time that I’m aware of. I visited a friend and set the phone down. The battery charge state was about 60%. When I went to leave a couple of hours later, I picked up the phone and the battery was nearly dead and the phone was hot. Under normal circumstances, it would have dropped by maybe a couple of percent. Someone very definitely decided to turn my phone into a bug that time. The phone never behaved like that before or since.
So while I don’t see any evidence of Android transmitting random audio in the manner described in the article below, Android is very definitely capable of being used as an audio bug, and it has happened to me to the point that it was totally obvious. It’s not like it came as a shock that this happened. I’d been reporting on the capability for years on Cryptogon. It just finally happened to me.
The incident I described above happened a couple of years ago and I never mentioned it on here. I thought that people might think, “Oh sure, conspiracy theorist thinks he was targeted for surveillance,” etc. etc. That’s fine, but that incident definitely happened. I’m mentioning it now because I think the danger of the piece below is that people will see their audio sessions, recognize them as legitimate, and assume nothing to see here, that’s the extent of what can happen with the phone.
Nope.
If you carry a mobile phone, or find yourself in the presence of people who carry mobile phones, know that any audio could potentially be recorded.
Snowden actually demonstrates how you can avoid having the phone turned into a bug when you’re not using it.
Of course, as soon as you put the battery back in, you give up your position and when you do anything on the phone, that’s compromised as well. But it might be helpful to someone to know that the mics and cameras can be removed.
Via: Independent:
Google could have a record of everything you have said around it for years, and you can listen to it yourself.
The company quietly records many of the conversations that people have around its products.
The feature works as a way of letting people search with their voice, and storing those recordings presumably lets Google improve its language recognition tools as well as the results that it gives to people.
Thanks for posting about your experience. I’ve never mentioned my similar experience for the same reason you didn’t.
“Oh sure, conspiracy theorist thinks he was targeted for surveillance,” etc. etc.
Sometimes it’s helpful to hear stories from other people that match your own experiences.
I’ve been meaning to have a chat with Apple about how my (older model) iphone’s location services switched itself on one night about 3 months ago in the absence of any apps being open and with all privacy/data/app/update settings clamped down. I have screenshots showing location services toggled to off while the icon shows it’s on. Never done it before or since. After a couple of hours, the icon disappeared and it appeared to behave normally again.