Facebook Wants to Use Your Phone's Microphone to Record Secret Messages

 

Facebook has filed for a patent for software that could turn on the microphones of smartphones on in order to record secret messages in TV ads, without the knowledge of the phone's owner.

System would allow Facebook to identify what adults and children are watching based on ambient noise.

The patent application describes a system where an audio fingerprint embedded in TV shows or ads, inaudible to human ears, would trigger the phone, tablet or long-rumored smart speaker to turn on the microphone and start recording “ambient audio of the content item”. The recording could then be matched to a database of content to allow Facebook to identify what the individual was watching.
Privacy experts are concerned about the intrusion into people’s homes, particularly as the ambient audio recording would likely catch snippets of people’s private conversations without their knowledge.

“It’s extremely disconcerting for privacy to have an inaudible beacon as it means they want to make it not obvious to the user that the device is listening,” said William Budington, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  (The Guardian, June 28, 2018)
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