Wait – WTF is “Phone Spying”?

By now, many people suspect that our devices snoop on us. Some call this “phone spying.” A couple of months ago, I had a conversation with my uncle, and he flatly denied this reality.

“Zac, this would be the biggest conspiracy ever. There’s no way in f*** that these huge companies are phone spying…”

Now, my uncle is brilliant. He worked on top-secret projects for the US government for decades. I felt gaslit. Was my quiet acceptance of phone spying by Big Tech companies wrong? Were tech companies not spying on our conversations? When I mention PetSmart to a friend out of the blue, only to see dog toy ads on my social feeds hours later, was that just coincidence?

Evidence already shows that phone spying happens. But I needed to hear it from the source. My uncle loves to argue, and so do I. I needed ammunition.

The next day, I dug deeper. A quick Google search led meto a company exposed for using “active listening” technologies. I contacted them directly.

“Hi, yeah I’m looking for digital marketing services for my tech startup.”

“Absolutely sir, let me schedule you with one of our marketing experts.”

Spy Games

A week later, I was on a call with [company name redacted]. During our 45-minute conversation, I got a clear verbal admission. They employ phone spying and other techniques with various devices. They used to call this “active listening technology” – their legal department has since advised them to change the terminology or, better yet, not mention it at all.

Disturbingly, they have billions of devices set up for phone spying connected to their data acquisition platform right now.

How does it work? Your phone responds to “Hey Siri” or “Okay Google.” Similarly, it responds to thousands of keywords digital marketers set up. But instead of a helpful digital assistant, you get a background http POST directly to [company name redacted]. This post includes your “Mobile Advertising ID” and the keyword your device picked up through phone spying:

 

{

MAID: [redacted],

keyword: “PetSmart”,

timestamp: 1678886400,

…

}

 

Well, the truth is out. The cat’s out of the bag. Now my uncle can read this and see the ugly truth.

Et tu, Apple?

Apple has a reputation for prioritizing consumer privacy and security. Their excellent marketing makes you think they aren’t involved in things like phone spying.

Welp. That’s not the case.

Siri, everyone’s least favorite digital assistant, has been caught phone spying. Even worse, actual human beings, not just AI, listened to our conversations obtained through Siri. Apple never told us this or asked permission. They did all this while claiming to be the “most secure” tech company, all while participating in phone spying.

Caught red-handed, Apple settled a class-action lawsuit for a mere $95 million earlier this year. This was because Siri’s phone spying capabilities activated remotely without user intent and recorded audio sent to third parties.

Reclaim Your Data

Organizations like Apple and [company name redacted] made almost $500,000,000,000 last year mining your data using tactics like phone spying and selling it without your permission.

I firmly believe this money belongs to the people who created the data, not to companies who phone spy for a living.

VALT is built on this mission. Our app uses several countermeasures to fight these data mining practices. Our first defense is our dVPN. You’ve likely heard of a VPN. It relays your online activity through a “Virtual Private Network,” hiding your IP address and anonymizing your online activity. Apple’s “Private Relay” is different. It’s far less secure thana VPN and won’t stop phone spying.

The “d” in dVPN stands for “decentralized.” This means no single authority, including VALT, controls it. When you use NordVPN or SurfShark, you trust that they don’t log your activity. However, many VPN companies have been caught phone spying using their proxies while claiming “strict no-logging policies.”

Our dVPN uses a web3 network with over 800,000 individual contributors. This removes the need for trust and makes VPN logging impossible.

Block Phone Spying with VALT+

VALT also offers excellent data erasure services. Each month, we contact major data brokers for you and ensure they delete your information, including data obtained through phone spying. This is part of our VALT+ package.

 

Our app also lets you see your data for the first time. No other app does this. Our Personal Data Timeline lets you see your heart rate when the ball dropped in NYC on New Year’s Eve. If Google can use phone spying to see what you did 43 days ago, shouldn’t you be able to see it, too? In fact, we believe it’s obvious that only you should have access to this information.

But our main goal is to help you get paid for your data. Instead of being a victim of phone spying, you can earn money with the world’s first Personal Data Marketplace. You choose to share your marketing keywords, geolocations, social media likes, and purchase data at your discretion. Your data is yours. You have the right to sell it and protect your privacy.

Join the Revolution

VALT is a young company. We are currently raising our Seed Round of investment, and we’re totally bootstrapped at the moment. In order for our marketplace to start making money, we need to amass about 2 million users. With every download, we get closer to our goal of helping people get paid for their data – an amount that could be close to $100 per month at scale. If you haven’t done so already, download the app for iOS, Android, MacOS, and/or Windows, and help us spread the word. It’s time to reclaim your data and put an end to phone spying.