Ask Jerry: Is my phone really spying on me?

Welcome to Ask Jerry, where we talk about any and all the questions you might have about the smart things in your life. I'm Jerry, and I have spent the better part of my life working with tech. I have a background in engineering and R&D and have been covering Android and Google for the past 15 years.

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Does my phone really spy on me?

Caleb asks:

Hi

I have heard people say things like we carry around a spying device or tracking device in our pockets everywhere we go when talking about our phones. Is this really true?

Thanks Jerry!

Hi Caleb! I have heard the same sorts of things, and I've said the same sorts of thing a time or two — because it's mostly true. If someone were to try and invent the perfect passive spying device, it would turn out a lot like the phone we all carry around every day.

The short answer: your phone "listens" to every word if you use any sort of voice assistant but only reacts when it hears the right word. Some apps also listen to what the microphone can hear if you grant them permission. In addition, most apps and services track your location unless you explicitly refuse to allow it, but you can't stop your cell provider from tracking your location in real-time and keeping a log of everywhere you've been.

There is no getting away from it; your phone tracks your movements and probably listens in on whatever it can hear. If you stop and think about it, that's exactly what it was designed to do. No matter what brand or operating system you're using, your phone is tracking you somehow.

You can control some of this because when it comes to having access to the microphone, you have to allow it to happen — nothing on your phone can use the microphone, even the "app" you use to make phone calls, if you say it's not allowed to do it.

You probably don't, though. It's not your fault, either. Some apps, like the phone dialer I mentioned, have permission to use the microphone automatically. The company that made the phone figures you want to talk into one end of a conversation if you plan on calling someone, so enabling it makes sense. Other apps that want to listen to anything have to ask you; that's the little pop-up message you may have seen asking for you to grant permission for it to do so.

The problems are that most people just tap yes or OK without paying any attention, app developers often make it mandatory if you want the apps to work at all, and the wording that explains what's going on isn't super clear. Even if you read everything, you may not understand what you're saying, which is OK.

A great example is an app that's listening and running on your screen when the timeout kicks in, and the display shuts off. That app may still be running and still listening for whatever the developers want to hear. App permissions, especially on Android, are really complicated and intertwined together in a lot of confusing ways.

That said, most app developers aren't trying to spy on your conversations. An app is expecting to hear something specific so it can react to it, just like Google Assistant, Siri, or Gemini does. Technically, your assistant or the Amazon Alexa app is spying on you but only because you wanted it to do it. You granted it permission.

You can shut the microphone off completely on most modern phones to put a stop to all of it for those times you don't want anyone — or anything — to listen.

Location tracking works mostly the same. Your phone comes with pre-installed apps that need your location to work like Google Maps, and you can install plenty of other apps that will use your location in a way the developer thinks makes the app better.

Your location permissions are a little more complex because your location can be determined in different ways. Your phone can get a "coarse" location using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices that are close to you without using GPS. This is handy and fast in large places; an app could be made to help you navigate Disneyland using only Bluetooth beacons and it would update quickly and use very little battery compared to using GPS. It could also be more precise, depending on the amount and placement of known markers.

Most of the time your phone uses GPS to get its "precise" location, usually accurate to within 3 feet or so.

You can grant permission for just a coarse location or the precise location for most apps. You can also shut location services off completely in your phone's settings, but neither will work.

Now, throw all this out the window when it comes to your carrier actively tracking your every move.

Your carrier can track you using the phone network, and all carriers do it.

They have to do it to make sure you have proper signal coverage, so that's OK. However, they also keep these records and have been known to sell the data to anyone willing to pay for it. That's not so good.

It's technically possible for this to happen even without an active connection. In the United States (and possibly other countries) your phone can make an emergency call to 911 while locked and without a SIM connection to a carrier. This is a safety feature that is a great idea. It also means that cell sites are being pinged by your phone and pinging back; when three cell sites are in range your position can be easily calculated.

I've not heard of anyone being tracked this way but it highlights the idea that the only way to keep everyone from tracking your location is to not carry your phone.

None of this means your phone is a bad thing to carry around. Even without a phone, you can often be tracked through the use of cameras, your car, or when and where you use your bus pass. If someone wants to listen to your every word equipment that can do it from 100 or more feet away is out there and easy to buy.

The average Joe or Jane isn't taking the time to write a popular mobile app so they can listen to or track people, and most apps that can do it have a legitimate reason for doing so. Besides, you are in control of where and when it happens.

As far as your carrier tracking you, there isn't anything you can do about it other than be aware.