Google constantly records, collects, and shares microphone audio and online data

[HussarHussar]

The problem:
Over the last year I've discovered important problem's with Google's data collection and algorithm. First, I've discovered that my personally identifiable information including social media posts, clipboard history, android key strokes, text messages, camera information, and microphone audio is being collected and freely shared with Youtube content creators and websites I visit that I assume are Google affiliated. I've noticed that new uploads to channels I frequently watch increasingly contain references to words, conversations, and images from my phone or social media accounts, or information about my friends and family. Sometimes they contain passwords, names, or very specific quotes from online posts or messages. I think this is part of a larger user profiling strategy that is trying to increase engagement with recordings that are being collected without user knowledge or informed consent. Every time I open the Youtube app, I see new content containing indirect commentary on assumptions a Youtube creator has made about my text messages from the day before, or very specific references to audio from years ago. This means that my microphone audio (and possibly everyone else's) has been constantly recorded for years. This data is still being collected even after my phone has been reset, and my google account has been deleted, and with almost no permissions allowed on the phone. I think that is being done based on my location and device information. I'm wondering if this is happening to anyone else? I don't want to make this message too long since there are a lot of details I would need to explain, but I can answer any questions.
This has all really opened my eyes about how content is created on Youtube, and how large companies freely share personal information that others can use to support any narrative they want. It's become an even bigger issue because the content being created based on these assumptions is then being shared with other android devices around me, which causes suspicion about why they're seeing certain ads or certain content is being filtered to the top of their social media timelines. There is a lot more information I can go into about what I think this means about how content in social media is manipulated, and what 'trending' actually means. It seams at this point my main option is to never leave home with my phone and to replace it with a something more simple as soon as possible.

The question:
Is there any way to entirely disable this data collection? Anyone I can contact to about this? Maybe rooting and removing certain services will help?

Device information:
Huawei P9 lite 16GB Unlocked
Fido is my carrier

 

[Rukbat]

The data isn't normally captured. Have a security expert check your phone and computer out.

(If it's on the internet, it's available to anyone, so the only certain way to make sure that nothing you type ever gets out is to stay off the internet.)

 

[Mooncatt]

Are you saying you think that content creators are making YouTube videos specifically based on what you are saying? That's way out there conspiracy theory stuff, because those content creators are not going to make videos tailored to every one of their thousands of subscribers, much less including topics of private texts. If you care to share one such video and explain why you think it was made by spying on you, I'd love to see it.

That said, people are anonymously tracked all over, and have been for almost as long as the internet has existed. So what may be happening is that content creators are seeing a given topic trending in general. A topic you happen to also be actively communicating with others about. So a creator may decide to make a video about said topic, without ever seeing your info.

Another possibility is sites like Google and Facebook will notice you are visiting a certain type of website a lot, like Android Central. They deduce you have an interest in smartphones, so then you get ads and suggested posts related to smartphone use. Again, this is without divulging any private info, and there are some steps to limit this tracking.

One thing I have found out recently are smart tv's can have the ability to record your conversations. If you tell someone next to you that you're thinking about upgrading your phone, the algorithms in the system will pick up on that and show you commercials for the latest phones. The good news is you can turn this off in the settings, and some manufacturers have switched to make them turned off by default due to public backlash. Just note that this isn't anyone personally recording and listening in on your conversations. It's a computer program that picks up on key words that then decides how to use them.

 

[kramer5150]

So you are saying two things:
1) Your personal usage is being harvested and published to content creators who are specifically releasing video content based on your own information.

2) Your personal topics of interest are being harvested and the youtube app is suggesting videos based on your past topics of interest.

Scenario #1 I doubt is being done. Unless you are a politician maybe or someone of interest.

Scenario#2 is a very real scenario. I have several friends who have complained about this very thing, FWIW they are all iPhone users though, not android. They hap-hazardly grant all permissions to many apps, including microphone access. The apps can listen in on conversations and do whatever they want with this information. If you enable Hey Siri, or OK google... and leave that running continually, it will be listening to anyone within range of the microphone.

 

[HussarHussar]

The data isn't normally captured. Have a security expert check your phone and computer out.

(If it's on the internet, it's available to anyone, so the only certain way to make sure that nothing you type ever gets out is to stay off the internet.)

Why should using the internet, which I need for basic daily communication and quickly accessing relevant information, come at the cost of my privacy?

 

[HussarHussar]

Are you saying you think that content creators are making YouTube videos specifically based on what you are saying? That's way out there conspiracy theory stuff, because those content creators are not going to make videos tailored to every one of their thousands of subscribers, much less including topics of private texts. If you care to share one such video and explain why you think it was made by spying on you, I'd love to see it.

That said, people are anonymously tracked all over, and have been for almost as long as the internet has existed. So what may be happening is that content creators are seeing a given topic trending in general. A topic you happen to also be actively communicating with others about. So a creator may decide to make a video about said topic, without ever seeing your info.

Another possibility is sites like Google and Facebook will notice you are visiting a certain type of website a lot, like Android Central. They deduce you have an interest in smartphones, so then you get ads and suggested posts related to smartphone use. Again, this is without divulging any private info, and there are some steps to limit this tracking.

One thing I have found out recently are smart tv's can have the ability to record your conversations. If you tell someone next to you that you're thinking about upgrading your phone, the algorithms in the system will pick up on that and show you commercials for the latest phones. The good news is you can turn this off in the settings, and some manufacturers have switched to make them turned off by default due to public backlash. Just note that this isn't anyone personally recording and listening in on your conversations. It's a computer program that picks up on key words that then decides how to use them.

Not think, I know. It's not a conspiracy because this has been happening for a year, which means there is a year of content from popular creators that have consistently shown this, some of these videos are on the 'trending' page right now. As I've mentioned, I suspect this is part of Google's profiling strategy. Before a year ago, I barely watched any youtube content or cared much about any of Google's services until my watch time increased drastically for a few months where I went from 0 hours a week to 12 hours a week of watch time. This makes me suspect that the 'trending' on Youtube and possibly other social media isn't necessarily about how many people are engaged, but how much of an increase in engagement it creates in certain profiles of people. If something makes 10 people go from watching 1 hour of content on one channel to 1 hour of content on another channel, I would expect that this would be less valuable to Youtube than something that makes 1 person go from watching 0 hours to 1 hour. My small demographic, limited online history, and odd combination of interests online are also part of what makes me suspect that I've been grouped in a certain profile. If I start sharing these videos that contain references to my personal information, this then then creates a trap of me giving up more privacy in order to attempt to stop privacy invasion. You can see an example of some thinly veiled inside jokes here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L35mtzCINQA) at 43:00. The majority of the video after this is a mockery of a day or two (right before the video was uploaded) where I spent half my time playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and League of Legends, and references to . It was also days before that coworkers where I work had a conversation about mental illness where I think one of them was claiming they expert insight about mental illness that everyone assumed was BS. After that, I also had a conversation where I work about celebrity sexual harrassment and Michael Jackson's sexual assault allegations when he was alive. Specific sentences from that conversation can be heard at 45:00. I've also noticed that part of this algorithm possibly is retrieving information about people around me in an attempt to give context to these conversation. I'm not sure if the jokes at 46:50 are a reference to me, my family, or something private a coworker shared with me, but probably all of them. This is a channel I occassionally watch suddenly uploading a video with specific phrases, and references to things that were said at work, or while I was playing games and my phone was nearby or in front of me days before. There are countless examples of this from numerous channels, but I will try and give very clear ones. You can see another clear example here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVpp2BUtMoY) Where the employees at this channel give fake confessions about their experiences growing up. This seams to be based on assumptions they've made about my experience based on microphone audio from personal events that happened to or around me years ago. I've been deliberately reducing my online activity and interaction with any Google affiliated service in order to prevent more privacy invasion but I've noticed that this doesn't prevent my information from being shared, and instead continues to share data collected further in my history. This includes my personal weight concerns at 1:20 (although I'm not overweight), where they use words to describe this that I'm sure almost no one ever uses except me. You can also see a reference to my hair at 2:10, and some more assumptions about a difficult year I had in middle school at 2:41 I suspect the use of my specific words is related to a Google AdWords strategy where Google is able to match words in links to specific users based their online history. It seams that when youtube generates text scripts for videos uploaded to analyze them, it matches recommendations to viewers with a similar process. However, these creators are somehow able to see what words are supposedly likely to attract high watch time before they upload. If you would like for me to also list these specific words or give more examples, I can do that.

This isn't 'anonymous tracking' (which doesn't really exist in my opinion), it's specifically targeting an individual with some aggressive tracking to a point where audio is still being collected when my phone is off because my phone seams to be sharing my location and the device information of all the android devices around me with Google, which then uses those other devices to record my conversations until my phone is turned back on, and it knows those devices are no longer in range. I've tested this theory several times. It isn't anonymous tracking when 10 or 20 videos in a row from a channel are done like this. If a video is uploaded about a topic I talked with someone about in a private Facebook message the day before, and it also contains refrences to very specific situation where I mentioned the topic 5 years ago, there's nothing general about that. The data collection and sharing is happening in a different degree than what you're describing.

I've tried disbaling nearly every privacy related setting on my phone, I've turned off every setting in the Goggle's Activity Manager, I've deleted my Google account, I've factory reset my phone and disabled every permission except call and text, all of this is still happening. It's at a point where I've decided to put stickers on my phone's cameras because the uploads often have references to images around me, images similar to things around me, or people that more and more often look like people around me. I had no idea of the extent of Google's surveillance until this started happening to me.

 

[HussarHussar]

So you are saying two things:
1) Your personal usage is being harvested and published to content creators who are specifically releasing video content based on your own information.

2) Your personal topics of interest are being harvested and the youtube app is suggesting videos based on your past topics of interest.

Scenario #1 I doubt is being done. Unless you are a politician maybe or someone of interest.

Scenario#2 is a very real scenario. I have several friends who have complained about this very thing, FWIW they are all iPhone users though, not android. They hap-hazardly grant all permissions to many apps, including microphone access. The apps can listen in on conversations and do whatever they want with this information. If you enable Hey Siri, or OK google... and leave that running continually, it will be listening to anyone within range of the microphone.

I'm talking only about scenario 1. I'm not sure why it's being done but I've made suggestions in my reply to Mooncatt. Based on the experience I'm having, and people I'm talking to right now, I doubt that Google's surveillence algorithim which contributes to it's largest source of revenue and makes it a world leader in marketing, is simple enough to be summarised in those 2 sentences.

 

[Almeuit]

I could see something like getting suggestions for videos to watch but being created because you talked about them? Idk on that one.

 

[Mooncatt]

I could see something like getting suggestions for videos to watch but being created because you talked about them? Idk on that one.

That's my thinking too. I didn't check every individual example from those videos, but of the ones I did check, there was nothing even vaguely personal used in them. Sorry, but something like that article about gaming as a mental disorder is not something created just for that one YouTube creator, just to tailor a video specific to the OP or any other single person. That news article was being talked about all over the place, so of course you're going to see that if you watch anything on trending stories of the day. To suggest otherwise would have to mean every news and information outlet is out to make content aimed at one specific person, because they all covered it.

Similar explanations would hold true for all the other stuff posted above. It's all circumstantial at best, but my guess is the content creation is just coincidental because the OP likely keeps up with trendy topics and those outlets also talk about trendy topics.

 

[HussarHussar]

I'm not saying the news article specifically is using the personal information (but I think this can also happen and is happening on certain sites I follow to a degree). I'm saying the youtube creators reacting to it in this example are. The point is that their reaction isn't about the article, it's an excuse to discuss the data. I'm not talking about the actual article. Look at how specific the examples I've given are. I'm not saying they are addressing me specifically, I'm saying that data specific to me is currating the content. I often see videos containing things like my name, names of people I know, birth date, lines from emails, all in the same video, right after I mention them online or in conversation. Most alarming is the implication that this is possible because blocks of my information is being shared with them. Please look at all of the examples in the second video. A year of watching this trend with every new channel I watch, or major site I frequently follow, isn't circumstantial. I can actually measure these trends in frequency of related topics, sentences, phrases, and images in relation to when I start following, and the frequency that I view. I can give copies of past emails with the date they were sent, and show you a video uploaded the day after from I channel I frequently watched at the time, containing lines from it.

 

[Mooncatt]

Then here's my suggestion to you if you feel this strongly about it. First, hire a tech firm to make sure your activity is secured as best as possible. Second, hire a lawyer and take these people to court, because for your claims to be true would mean invasion of privacy.