Facebook, as we know, has recently been into a lot of controversies regarding the privacy of its users. First of all, there was a scandal that came into light a few months ago which was done by Cambridge Analytica. This company, Cambridge Analytica, was reportedly passed on some vital information which could have made a huge difference in Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States.
Apart from that, Cambridge Analytica was found to have ties with Indian National Congress as well as BJP, two major Indian political parties as well. Now that the controversy has subsided, sort of, Facebook would have taken a huge sigh of relief.
However, the controversies don’t seem to stop for Facebook as one new patent has been found which was registered by Facebook. This patent is seemingly a violation of user’s privacy. Talking about the patent, Facebook’s latest controversy in the form of a patent was discovered by Metro.
This patent was published on June 14 earlier this month and has been found out now. This patent emphasizes how Facebook has the ability to remotely turn on any user’s microphone from their smartphone. However, the most shocking thing is that the user will not even have a hint of his mic being turned on remotely.
Now, this patent has been filed for a reason as detailed by the company in their application. This patent will let Facebook embed high-pitched audio signals in broadcast content say for example their TV Ads. Once the Ad plays, the audio signals will trigger the mic on our phones and other gadgets to turn on recording. The catch, however, is that these signals cannot be heard at all by humans so we will not know if our mics are turned on or not.
Also, the system has the ability to send “ambient audio fingerprint” or recorded samples back to Facebook for analysis. Facebook has clarified that it has no plans of using this patented technology but we would never know if this is used as it is inaudible to human ears.