The suspicion that smartphones are listening to conversations to display targeted advertising has worried users for years. To investigate this issue, a team of researchers conducted an in-depth study analyzing 17,260 applications for the Android system.
The study examined in detail the behavior of these applications to determine whether there was concrete evidence that devices were capturing audio without the knowledge of users.
The researchers sought to understand how apps collect data and use personal information to target advertising.
This study comes at a time when concerns about digital privacy and the access that applications have to user data are growing.
