Talk about bags, stationery, perfumes or clothing — just random conversation with anyone. You never type a single letter into Google search, but within two hours, while scrolling on Instagram, you see perfume, clothing or bags ads....

For a moment, you will be happy to see it all; the next moment you will think:‘How did it know I wanted this stuff? Is it listening to me?’

You’re not wrong to wonder — but you’re wrong about why. And you’re not alone; almost everyone has had that same suspicious moment. But every major tech company denies it, on record. Be it Apple, Google and Meta — they have all said, repeatedly and on the record, that your phone’s microphone isn’t secretly recording your conversations to sell you ads. Voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant only wake up for specific trigger words — “Hey Siri,” “Okay Google” — and are built, at the operating system level, so random apps can’t just switch on your mic without asking.

In 2018, researchers at Northeastern University tested over 17,000 popular Android apps to see if any were secretly turning on the microphone to record conversations. They found nothing — not one app was caught listening in. But they found something else instead: some apps were secretly taking screenshots and recording what people did on their screens, then sending it to other companies. Without asking.

So if the mic isn’t listening... why does it feel like it is?

It’s something more unsettling than a microphone. Your phone doesn’t need your voice. It has your habits. Every app you use is quietly logging what you tap, how long you linger on a video before scrolling past, which app listings you open and close without buying, and in which commute app you use drop-off points, also which TikToks you like and rewatch. None of that requires your voice. It just requires your presence on them.

Put enough of those small signals together and a company can build something close to a personality profile of you — not your name, usually, but your ‘patterns’. What time you’re awake, your likes and dislikes, the location of places you visit, etc.

This is scarier. Once the algorithm has a decent guess about you, it doesn’t just describe your taste. It starts shaping it. Keep watching one type of video and the platform keeps offering you more of the same, until your feed feels like it was built specifically for you.

The real spy? Your habits

Ads and feeds get most of the attention, but location tracking might be the most casually accurate spy of all. Ride apps obviously need your location to work. But plenty of apps that have nothing to do with maps still ask for it — a flashlight app, a game, a weather widget that wants your location ‘always,’ not just ‘while using.’ That data gets bundled and sold to data brokers, companies whose entire business is buying and reselling location trails, browsing habits and app activity in bulk.

Put enough location pings together over a few months and you don’t need anyone to tell a company where you live, where you study, who you’re close to, or what your routine is. That’s enough to map your whole life — without a single word from you.

So should you be alert now?

Yes, it is worth being a little more alert. A few things actually make a difference:

Check what permissions your apps have — does that game really need your microphone or your exact location, all the time?

• “While using the app” is a quieter choice than “always.”

• Turn off ad personalisation in your phone’s settings; although it won’t make ads disappear, it narrows what they’re built from.

• Delete apps you don’t use anymore — an app sitting untouched on your phone can still be collecting and sending data in the background.

• Read the permission pop-up before tapping ‘Allow’ — most people tap it without even reading it.

• Turn off ‘always-on’ location for apps that don’t need it — a flashlight app or a game has no real reason to know where you are 24/7.

• Log out of apps you’re not actively using — staying logged in all the time makes it easier for them to track you across sessions.

So next time you talk about bags or perfume and the ad shows up right on cue, don’t blame the mic. Blame the days of taps, pauses and scrolls that already gave you away. A little more awareness costs you nothing — ignoring it might cost you your privacy.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 29th, 2026