The spy in your phone

Surit Doss, TT, Sep 03, 2018 : A Cassandra-like video is making its rounds on social media, spreading the ominous message that all your smart devices are spying on you. Actually, all smart devices do share data with the company that makes them.

Your Android smartphone heads the list as the main culprit, sending messages to Google about 340 times a day, 10 times more than the iPhone does. Google can harvest your data only when you are connected to the Internet. If you can switch off your Net connection, most of your problems will be over. As a part of its effort to comply with the new European General Data Protection Regulation, Google has launched a new page to make it easier for users to stop it from tracking everything they do online, from logging Web activity, location history, device information, voice commands sent to Google Assistant, and YouTube search and watch history.

Control over your Google account is buried deep in your phone and not easily accessible. Head over to Settings in your Android device. Scroll down and you will find Google. Tap that and you will find "Google Account-Info, security, and personalisation". Tapping that will take you to your full account page. The first topic you will see in bold is "Review your privacy settings". Click on "Get started". You can get an overview of your current settings and, most probably, everything will be turned on. But you can pause several of the items

First, control your Web & App Activity. Web & App Activity saves all your searches, places and other Google activity to your Google account ostensibly to give you more personalised experiences across Google services. Tap on "Turned on" and flip the toggle button on the next page to off. It will turn grey. When prompted, tap on Pause and it will be paused. You may delete individual items saved inside the Web & App Activity window by clicking on the three vertical dots. These include a scarily comprehensive list of all that you have done day by day and hour by hour. After you turn off your Web activity, things you are searching for may take longer to find but the general experience on your phone will remain the same.