this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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Thats still all local activity.
People said the same thing about google home and alexa - and the reality is that it doesnt send anything until triggered.
The reason why it seems like your devices are listening is because of related data. Looking for where to buy magnesium, calcium, and zinc? Maybe while also looking for unscented lotion? Probably pregnant. Searched for them on your phone or desktop? All that data is being shared to hundreds of third parties.
All this data can be used to predict if you might be sick, or if you might be having trouble paying bills, popular things in your area that you may be talking about with friends (who just searched for it and now the data is related to you as well if you are in the same region, age group, marital status, etc), and so on down the line.
What you're saying near a device is practically irrelevant when there are thousands of other data points to go off of. They dont need crappy speech to text when all that data is being sent right from your keyboard.
Edited to add: I do literally mean your keyboard BTW. If youre using a google keyboard, Samsung keyboard, apple keyboard, etc - yeah they absolutely "share data with relevant parties".
Oh no, I know the difference. I'm just pointing out that while people are debating whether they are, I'd like to point out (and I can demonstrably prove) that they can and do hear a lot more than you think.
It's pure speculation if they're using that data or not. Correlation and causation and all that. The capability is certainly there. The results speak for themselves. But does one cause the other? Or are there other factors involved? We don't really know and everybody is just speculating.
I can say specifically that talking around devices, unless you've activated a voice assistant or something, does not transmit data anywhere. You can test this yourself if you've got a DNS server set up locally for the device being tested to hit, and sniff the traffic as well. This is not conjecture, its able to be tested pretty easily.
Is it it though? With closed source software we don't know what the software does.
What's stopping audio being recorded, stored locally, and only transmitted when other legitimate data is being transmitted? Hiding amongst the rest. Split up into random packets as to be obfuscated.
This used to be the talk of paranoid tin hat conspiracy theorists without any evidence but with the amount of tech scandals, Snowden leaks, etc it's no longer unfounded paranoia. Tech companies are nefarious, they will figure out nefarious means to get what they want.
You can track network communication, yes.
Where it goes, and whether or not it sends. This can all be tracked, along with the size of the data being sent. Even when split. This is all manageable with readily available tools..
Audio is a terrible medium - especially when they can get it from your keyboard, your browser, the apps you have installed, the social networks you're signed into, so on and so forth.
And, as I said, you can investigate this yourself. I'm hardly the only person who has actually checked. I did it for work, but others have done the same.
Edit: Let me expand briefly on "audio is a terrible medium". There are issues with:
Audio is not worth it. Its too much effort for too little information.