" oh sweet summer child " you might be thinking, and yeah. I got no clue.
A thing I appreciate about Lemmy is the tech savy, privacy conscious crowd. Since joining I’ve seen these topics discussed a lot more often so here I am, wondering how much and when do apps collect information about their users. Most people usually don’t mind or don’t notice this, and those who do often come across as conspiracy theorists.
What I’m trying to figure is what exactly gets mined, how, and for how long. I heard some apps track your eye movements or record your camera at all times. I’ve heard that Google records your audio 24/7. I find it hard to believe this would happen all the time as it sounds like pretty expensive process in phone resources as well as space (information is unlikely to be stored on video format, right? Is it even human readable at all?) Obviously if I purchase something online or if I’m browsing for a specific topic on any app, that data is gathered and used- I’ve seen it myself, after browsing about X, or purchasing X, I’ll see more ads and content similar to X ( if it makes it past my adblocker of course, but it’s hard to block ads on some apps). Now, does Google truly know how many times a day I fart ? Does Instagram keep track record of people’s faces and underwear color when they scroll in the toilet? Does it happen in the background at all times or only while I use those apps?
These are the stupid questions I need to know about. Sources appreciated. TIA.
Most apps have usage reporting enabled either permanently, or by default. It may be just in case of a crash, or it can constantly be collecting and reporting every tap and scroll you make, how long you hover before scrolling, if your screen is on, if you’re not switching to other apps, stuff like that.
Furthermore, the OS is constantly aware of other information, like from the motion sensors, wifi signal strength, connected devices, storage space, installed running apps, battery etc. It collects that data and can pass it on to the apps as well.
So all that information is then packaged together with some unique identifiers, phone number etc.
So there isn’t much need for camera to be always recording, since the system always knows where you are and what are you doing. Combine that with data of other users, and they know who you are with and what you are doing.
As for microphone, depends. Voice assistants do listen all the time for keywords and can probably be made to record everything, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. But they can still record if they mishear a command.
Worth noting that this kind of telemetry isn’t programmed by every app maker from scratch, but is done by libraries that people insert into their apps. Such as those by Google or MS, but alao others. So the library creator has access to all the data from other apps too, and can share it with customers and other parties.