Security researchers have developed an app that spies on the conversations of those around the phones it is installed on.

But the purpose of the app isn’t to breach your privacy. Instead, it has been designed to demonstrate how your privacy might be breached, and how what you say could be used by search engines and advertising networks to make adverts that are even more targeted.

Let’s take a look at the evidence, and try to work out whether surveillance-driven advertising is really taking place, or if it is really nothing more than good, old-fashioned, coincidence.

When Your Phone Knows

Various users across the web have claimed that something fishy is going on with their phones. They believe that smartphone microphones are being used to record what they say, with the information used to better target Google ads on websites and Facebook.

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