Can you stop your phone from listening?

How To Stop Any Smartphone From Listening to You

Follow these simple steps to ensure personal privacy when youre using an iPhone, Android or Google Pixel.

Look, no one wants to be paranoid, but we live in a surveillance society. Not just security cameras on every street corner but relatively benign-seeming things like apps that have access to your smartphones microphone recording whatever they hear, privacy be damned.

Thanks to a veryhelpful guide fromEsquire UK, we can help you ensure you dont end up an object of conversation for IT contractors listening to you have sex, or Amazon employeeslistening to Alexa so they can program direct marketing ads.

While youll find arguments insisting this is something average folks just dont need to worry about, theres nothing wrong with a little extra peace of mind. Get your phone and check out the appropriate models instructions below.

iPhone

Heres how to stop apps that access your microphone:

• Tap Settings
• Tap Privacy
• Tap Microphone
• Deselect [flip from green to gray] every app you dont want accessing the mic.

Heres how to turn off Siri:

• Return to Settings
• Tap Siri & Search
• Deselect Listen for Hey Siri, Press Home for Siri, and Allow Siri When Locked
• Tap Turn Off Siri when the prompt appears

Its a little different for iOS 10:

• Tap Settings
• Tap General
• Tap Siri
• Tap Turn Off Siri

If you arent going to use dictation:

• Tap Settings
• Tap General
• Tap Keyboard
• Switch off Enable Dictation

Google Pixel

For apps that use the mic:

• Tap Settings
• Tap Privacy
• Tap Permissions Manager
• Tap Microphone
• Under the subheading Allowed, deselect the apps that dont need microphone access.

To turn off Google Assistant:

• Tap Settings
• Tap Apps & Notifications
• Tap Assistant
• Turn off Google Assistant

Android

To turn off OK Google Voice Assistant:

• Tap Settings
• Tap Google
• Tap Search under the Services header

Google records your searches and commands. Heres how to stop that:

• Login to Googles My Activity page [all your web activity, basically]
• Tap filter by Date & Product
• Tap Deselect All
• Tap Voice & Audio
• Tap Apply
• Tap on Voice and Audio above whatever file you want to listen to
• Tap View recording and play

There you have it. We dont know what the NSA can still do, but at least Google contractors wont be able to hear you singing in the shower anymore.