Keeping an eye on you

There’s nothing like a good conspiracy theory. Remember those great taglines from the long-running TV series The X Files, like “The Truth is Out There”, “Trust No One”, and “Deny Everything”? Agents Scully and Mulder investigated unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena and the possibility of extra-terrestrial activity here on earth. And many believe that the extra-terrestrial truth is stranger than fiction, and that governments around the world routinely conspire to hide evidence that aliens are definitely closer than we think. Far more, though, subscribe to another conspiracy theory and a belief that something totally down to earth is watching and listening: our smartphone. But is that possible? Can it happen? And does it? Well…many of us have had the weird and spooky experience of chatting on the phone to a friend about a certain product one day only to find the phone bombarded with advertising for the very same item the next. Happened to you? Think it was merely a coincidence, or was your phone listening in? Well it probably was, but only to “help”, and only “in your best interest”. Your ever helpful smartphone very likely “virtually” assisted you, whether or not you requested that assistance. But then, you did request that assistance, didn’t you? You clicked “Accept Cookies” when visiting various websites or gave consent for your phone to listen in when accepting the terms and conditions of the software updates or app downloads you chose. You didn’t go through other options available, just blithely accepted the lot. It was so much quicker and far less bother. And with that click, directly or indirectly, you gave multiple unspecified companies the go-ahead to gather, store – and trade – your information. And now it’s out there, in the cyberspace marketplace, available to the highest bidder. Simple, isn’t it? Well not really, and the conspiracy theorists have it that internet giants like – you know the ones we mean – conspire to make it increasingly difficult for you to opt-out of virtually anything. Entire industries, they claim, are structuring themselves to harvest as much data as possible on all of us for future use.

A bit spooky, eh? A bit X-files? But there’s more, much more. Some folk reckon they’ve received targeted information and advertising when not even using their phone, just when it was nearby. Others claim they’re absolutely certain that their phone is not just listening to their every word, but watching them, too, through the built-in camera. Surely that’s impossible? It’s just being paranoid, taking the conspiracy theory argument too far. Isn’t it? Well again, maybe not, when some in the industry recommend taping over the camera on your phone when not using it. And incredibly, Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg, has been pictured with both the camera and the microphone jack on his laptop taped over. Now, why would he take such an action, unless he knows something most of us don’t? And the camera never lies. Or does it? One thing’s for sure – the truth is out there somewhere!