Our smartphones are spying on us; here’s how you can avoid it

Technology is developed to assist us in becoming a more energy efficient and productive society is now our greatest danger to our privacy and self-sovereign well-being. Take a look around – anything from smart refrigerators to smart light bulbs, nanny cameras to smart TVs, laptops, Ring, Google Nest, Alexa, and our smartphones are spying on us, and that’s just the equipment that’s doing it before you leave the home.

Carrier-branded smartphones: These are the phones that you may “lease” from any carrier on a month-to-month basis. They come bundled with a slew of carrier-branded apps that cannot be deleted. The majority of the applications are carrier-specific, logging the data you enter as well as tracking other apps.

T&T Secure Family and the Google Play App are two examples, both of which promise to “find your family, limit your child’s screen time, and monitor their phone use.”

Key characteristics include:

This app may share your information with other parties.
This app may gather personal and location data.
In transit, data is encrypted.
Data can’t be erased.

Apps: We have far too many of these on our iPhones. When was the last time you downloaded an app that didn’t require access to every element of your phone to function? Almost every program we install requires access to our contacts, phone, SMS, images, GPS position, and so on. With the proliferation of malware applications targeting cryptocurrency users, shouldn’t we be paying greater attention to the apps we install and the permissions we provide them.

Mobile OS: A mobile OS is the operating system that your smartphone runs, and it is similar to a version of Windows, macOS, or Ubuntu on your personal computer. The smartphone market is now controlled by two companies. Apple and Google By accepting the “terms and conditions” for using Google or Apple services, we grant them access to every part of our lives, both private and public. When individuals worry about Big Tech spying on them, it’s actually our responsibility because we have no obligation to utilise any of these services.

We should all remember that privacy is a privilege that should not be taken lightly or sacrificed for convenience. Unless you want to live off the grid in the mountains, nothing is really secure and private.