A survey found that 80% of people are worried about being tracked online. While AI makes our lives convenient, it has its drawbacks. It can invade your privacy and collect data without your consent. Here are 11 suspicious ways AI could be spying on you.
Social Media
Social media platforms use AI algorithms that track your online activity, behavior, and preferences. They also track your demographic data such as age, gender, and location. These algorithms are why you keep seeing customized recommendations or targeted ads on e-commerce websites, social networking apps, and OTT platforms.
Facial Recognition
George Orwell’s dystopian fiction classic ‘1984’ published in 1949 talks about a device called Telescreen. This device spied on people in their homes, studied their faces and movements, and transmitted data to a third party. Who knew fiction would become a reality today? Facial recognition systems use AI capabilities. They can capture your photos in public spaces and store them in an insecure database that can be hacked. Malicious actors spy on you to impersonate you and steal your identity.
A few railway stations in the UK have installed AI-powered cameras to predict the demographics and emotions of travelers. It is reported that data could be used for advertising.
Voice Assistants
Voice assistants Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant use AI-based voice recognition technology to understand and process natural language. Whenever you issue a command to your voice assistant, it could be misused for spying.
A 2019 publication revealed that external Apple Siri contractors were reviewing user conversations. Apple responded that it uses only 1% of recordings for product and service improvement. Amazon and Google were also reported doing this for a similar reason with their voice assistants. While these tech giants have strict privacy policies to seek user consent, your ignorance may infringe on your privacy.
Spyware Apps
Google banned several spyware apps from its Google Play Store after it found them collecting user data.
Spyware apps track and monitor your devices without your awareness or consent. They use techniques such as invisible browsers, SMS messages, or app icons to gather sensitive information about you. They can spy on you through photos, phone calls, text messages, and location.
Weather Apps
A Los Angeles city attorney filed a lawsuit against the Weather Channel app. He alleged the app company sold the user’s location data to third parties, misleading them and violating their privacy. If you have not reviewed privacy permissions or restricted/disabled location permissions on the weather app, you could fall victim to spying.
Dating Apps
More than 59% of daters from across the globe are open to using AI as their online dating coach. They want AI’s help for picking up lines, conversation starters, creating a profile, and enhancing photos. Dating apps encourage users to share more information about themselves to find the best potential suitors. These apps also ask personal and random questions which could be a means to collect more data.
However, AI-powered dating apps make daters susceptible to scams, catfishing, and deepfakes.
Ambient Light Sensors
Researchers found that ambient light sensors on a smartphone can double up as makeshift cameras. They used a computational imaging algorithm to prove their study. They also highlighted that these sensors can also capture smartphone users’ gestures and interactions while using the device.
This kind of spying is a threat to your privacy and security.
Smart Home Apps and Devices
According to a study, an average of 1 in 10 smartphone apps collect user data for tracking. AI-enabled smart devices such as televisions, refrigerators, speakers, doorbells, and webcams make you vulnerable to snooping from cybercriminals. These devices capture your voice, gestures, and interactions, and store them as data that can be misused by the brand or third parties.
A study reveals that smart TVs from two popular brands take screenshots of user activity every 10 milliseconds using Automatic Content Recognition technology. The home security company Ring’s home security cameras came under the radar of the Federal Trade Commission for its privacy failures. Its employees not only pried on customers but also made their videos.
Keylogging
Hackers can record your keystrokes on a device to steal passwords or other sensitive data. Researchers proved this by building an AI-enabled proof of concept called BlackMamba. They trained this AI to decode keystrokes. It achieved 95% accuracy on a phone and 93% accuracy on a Zoom recording.
Keylogging attackers can commit identity theft by getting access to your name, social security number, passwords, credit card information, etc.
Virtual Reality (VR) Headsets
Researchers exposed a security glitch in Meta’s Quest VR system. They found that hackers can take advantage of generative AI to inject malicious code into the device screen. This code gives them control over the headset to track the users. They can spy on user’s voice, social interactions, gestures, browsing data, and keystrokes. AirPod spying is another way digital offenders can misuse its AI-powered features in Apple devices.
Smart Cities
Several countries in the world, including the U.S., are developing smart cities. They are deploying AI in various forms such as facial recognition systems, traffic webcams, sensors, and license plate readers. While these surveillance tools aim to keep people safe and improve their quality of life, they also present a threat to individual privacy.
Government, law enforcement agencies, politicians, and cybercriminals can abuse citizens’ data for nefarious reasons.
12 Deepfake Disasters That Sparked Global Outrage
The rising advancements in Artificial Technology (AI) have provided newer, more sophisticated ways for cybercriminals to scam people. Deepfakes are one of their widely used weapons. It refers to creating manipulated images, videos, and audio with AI for fraudulent activities. They are so hyper-realistic that it becomes challenging for most people to identify them. While there have been several deepfake cases, the following 12 were the most scandalous.
10 Technology Predictions That Sounded Nuts—But Are Now True Stories
Over the years, people have made wild predictions about artificial intelligence (AI), ranging from the mundane to the downright outlandish. Think flying cars, tele-transporting, talking robots, and computers running our lives.
While some ideas remain stuck in science fiction, many predictions have surprisingly come true, and AI, which was once reserved for the science laboratory or movie screens has found its way into everyday human life. With machines changing the way we live to AI making decisions in a human capacity has turned the fiction of AI into reality.
Read on to learn the 10 craziest AI predictions that came true.
