NYREADERS.COM - If you wish to know the nuances of iPhone listening and see how to protect your privacy in an era with hacking and data compromises, read this article.
It is true that your iPhone might be passively listening, but perhaps not in the lawless, intrusive ways that you might imagine.
Apple, a multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley, does not sell data to third-parties for marketing purposes. The company has explicitly stated that:
“The customer is not our product and our business model does not depend on collecting vast amounts of personally identifiable information…,” in response to a 2018 U.S. congressional inquiry.
If that’s the case, why are iPhones listening?
One of the primary reasons as to why iPhone listening occurs is to detect voice commands, like “Hey Siri”.
While highly unlikely due to Apple’s rules and compliance processes, apps could also be “listening”.
When it comes to advertising, the term “listening” really refers to the use of sophisticated machine learning algorithms, which parse apart language to find ad targeting opportunities.
It’s probably not a coincidence if you’ve had a conversation about buying a new car, and shortly thereafter, corresponding advertisements appear.
Note: This isn’t at all common to iPhones, unless they’ve been jailbroken, and typically only occurs on other device types.
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