Is Facebook LISTENING to you? Woman claims she has PROOF her phone is spying on conversations
A WOMAN believes Facebook has been spying on her chats through her smartphone - and claims to have proof.
Adelaide Bracey, 23, from Sydney, says the social network targeted adverts on her app by listening to conversations she had with close friends.
The children's entertainer noticed that adverts about saunas started popping up on her Facebook page a few weeks after she and her mates had been discussing them.
Adelaide raised her concerns over a number of similar 'creepy' adverts on social media.
"I didn't Google it — and then it comes up as an ad on my Facebook. It's really creepy," she told .
"I type something in once or search for something and it follows me for the next few days, and sometimes it comes up even when you haven't Googled it, but if I've spoken about it with a friend."
Adelaide owns a children's entertainment company called Periwinkle Parties.
She said she receives adverts for children's schools despite having no children of her own.
People have long debated whether companies like Facebook are listening in on their conversations.
But there has never been any solid evidence – beyond hearsay and anecdotes – that the social media giant is recording your chats.
According to Adam Brown, manager of security solutions at software and microchip maker Synopsys, Adelaide's Facebook ads could have been warped by a number of things.
He told The Sun: "It’s quite likely that the woman’s targeted advert for saunas was a result of other sources of information and artificial intelligence (AI).
"Data company AI is powerful and can make correlations that might be at first overlooked - for example, this woman’s friend could have subsequently searched for saunas and as a result the AI knows that friends are searching that subject so offers similar context thereafter.
"Or perhaps the subject of saunas came up in conversation after some other search the woman performed which was related to saunas.
"Another possibility is that she passed a sauna while location tracking was enabled on her phone and that sauna was using local targeted advertising, while passing it she subliminally noticed it and it ended up in conversation anyway.”
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Facebook itself has also repeatedly denied it uses microphone recordings to target ads.
"Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed," a company spokesperson said.
"Some recent articles have suggested that we must be listening to people’s conversations in order to show them relevant ads. This is not true.
"We show ads based on people’s interests and other profile information – not what you’re talking out loud about.
"We only access your microphone if you have given our app permission and if you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio.
"This might include recording a video or using an optional feature we introduced two years ago to include music or other audio in your status updates."
If you're concerned about your online security, you might want to check our Best VPN article.
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