BOISE - Technology can be a bit spooky sometimes. Many of you may have experienced this, you mention something you might be interested in to friends or family -- only to see an ad for that very thing, or something similar. Those advertisements may appear on Facebook or other websites soon after.
This may lead you to the question that one viewer asked us -- is my smartphone listening in on my conversations? KTVB verified it.
Don Bowers, the lead for cybersecurity at the College of Western Idaho, says it's possible that data could be gathered from anything you say on your cell phone and that data could lead to you receiving targeted advertisements.
" A lot of people think they're being stalked by their cell phone well it might be something they searched in Google because Google saves a lot of this search information, and a lot of this is tied together so it's hard to identify sometimes where the ads are coming from, whether they're listening to your conversations, whether they're coming from something you posted,” says Bowers.
There are also several types of apps on your smartphone that have the ability to listen to your conversations.
“I have an iPhone if I say ‘hey Siri’ she’s going to come up. She’s wanting to know what I want. ‘Hey Google’ does the same thing so these apps are always listening to our conversations," says Bowers.
So how can you prevent it?
Bowers recommends making sure all of your apps are turned off after you use them and then pay attention to what you’re downloading.
“When you install an application, a lot of the time the application will ask you ‘hey I want to be able to use the camera, the microphone, location.’ If you don’t want the application to do that then tell it no, don’t allow,” says Bowers.
Bowers adds that these devices are around us all over the place and we don’t even know what’s listening or who is listening.