At our place, conversations are small, everyday things.
What’s for dinner.
Where the socks disappeared to.
Maybe, someday, visiting Dublin.
It wasn’t anything serious. We were just watching Will Trent when my wife said: “Wouldn’t it be nice to take a trip on a cruise?”
It was just a passing thought. We moved on.
But a few minutes later, without even searching it on my phone, Roku very casually suggested “cheap cruises from New York” and “best cruises in the Atlantic.” Like an overexcited friend who already had their suitcase packed. Not subtle. Not coincidental.
Then, a few days later, we started tossing around another idea — moving somewhere quieter, maybe starting fresh.
No house hunting apps.
No email subscriptions.
Just a casual, sleepy conversation at the kitchen table.
While we were still talking about it, Zillow decided that was a good moment to show me “new listings perfect for your next chapter.”
I hadn’t even finished talking yet.
That’s when my wife said it:
“They’re spying on us!”
And that’s when I told her the terrible truth:
“Not exactly. It’s worse.”
It’s Not Spying — It’s Mind Reading
Let’s start with the basics.
Your phone is probably not secretly recording your conversations 24/7.
Back in 2019, cybersecurity researchers at Wandera tested the idea by bombarding phones with pet food ads, monitoring every drop of data traffic for signs of hidden recordings.
And the result?
Silence.
Phones weren’t uploading secret audio. They weren’t even flinching. — Wandera Study on Phone Listening Myth
If your phone were secretly streaming your life to some shady server, it would leave the digital equivalent of muddy footprints.
And they found nothing.
So no — your iPhone isn’t leaning closer when you mumble about moving.
The truth is much, much weirder.
You Are an Open Book (Whether You Speak or Not)
They don’t need to listen anymore.
They already know.
Somewhere inside massive databases, a digital version of you is constantly evolving — a strange little paper doll stitched together from what you click, where you linger, who you know, what you hesitate over but don’t buy, where your phone sits quietly while you talk.
(Mine probably wears pajamas, forgets why it walked into a room, and occasionally dreams of buying a cold press juice maker.)
Every little moment adds a thread:
- The late-night shoes you almost buy.
- The restaurant you check but don’t book.
- The neighborhood you browse on Google Maps.
- The Amazon item you put in your cart, then forget.
- The friends you text at certain times.
Even your typing rhythm, your scrolling speed, your screen taps — they’re small fingerprints.
And they quietly sew your next moves into a pattern.
And if you think your phone is just an innocent bystander in your pocket, think again.
It’s arguably the greatest tracker ever invented — monitoring your location 24/7 through GPS, Wi-Fi, and cell towers.
This data isn’t just sitting there either: police have used geofence warrants to demand Google hand over information about every device near a crime scene — sometimes roping in completely innocent people who just happened to be biking by.
Even creepier, clever apps can infer what you’re doing without needing microphones.
By analyzing motion sensors, some apps can guess what you’re typing or detect conversations simply based on vibrations and how you hold the device.
In short: that friendly rectangle in your pocket?
It’s basically a junior detective that never clocks out — even if all you’re doing is texting your wife about what’s for dinner. — WeLiveSecurity - Smartphone Tracking
It turns out that tiny behaviors — a slight slowdown scrolling past an apartment listing, a few extra seconds hovering over an article about Dublin — say more about your future than any microphone ever could.
Researchers at Northeastern and Princeton even proved it:
Companies can predict major life events — moving, getting engaged, starting a family — before you even consciously decide. — Northeastern/Princeton Study on Predictive Targeting
In other words, when we thought we were just daydreaming over dishes about moving…
our data double was already packing boxes.
And if you want a classic example of predictive algorithms flexing their spooky muscles, let’s talk about Target.
Back in 2012, Target’s marketing team quietly developed a pregnancy prediction model.
By analyzing small changes in buying habits — like buying unscented lotion or vitamins — the company could predict when a customer might be expecting a baby.
In one famous case, a father stormed into a Target store demanding to know why his teenage daughter was receiving baby coupons.
The awkward part?
Target’s algorithm had figured out she was pregnant before her own family knew.
The store politely apologized… and was later proven correct.
From that day forward, many people realized just how eerily well companies could predict our most private life events — based purely on the boring, everyday breadcrumbs we leave behind. — Wikipedia - Target Pregnancy Prediction
When Your House Joins the Surveillance Squad
Phones used to be the only spies in the room.
Now, the entire house has a résumé.
Let’s talk about our dear friend Alexa.
Always cheerful. Always helpful.
Always possibly recording things she shouldn’t.
In real criminal cases, judges have ordered Amazon to hand over Echo recordings because Alexa may have heard evidence of a murder.
Meanwhile, at our place, she mostly hears us arguing over whose turn it is to wash our moka.
Apparently, when you invite a voice assistant into your home, you also get an honorary court witness — no extra charge. — The Verge - Alexa Court Orders
And then there’s our robot vacuum.
We bought it to clean dust.
What we didn’t know is that in 2022, test models of Roomba were caught taking actual photographs inside homes — including one infamous snapshot of a woman using the toilet.
Even worse, those images were leaked to strangers on the internet.
Honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if our vacuum knows my son’s nap schedule better than I do. — MIT Technology Review - Roomba Images Leak
And if you thought rogue bathroom selfies were bad, wait for this:
In 2020, researchers discovered they could convert a robot vacuum’s navigation system — the LiDAR laser it uses to avoid furniture — into a makeshift microphone.
By hacking the laser sensor, the vacuum could pick up sound vibrations from around the room, effectively eavesdropping on conversations without any traditional microphone.
It’s a James Bond twist nobody asked for: the same machine bumbling into your couch cushions could be casually spying on your afternoon gossip. — WeLiveSecurity - Spying Robot Vacuums
Nothing says “smart home” like your vacuum cleaner moonlighting as a paparazzo.
Meanwhile, your Smart TV might be taking notes too.
In 2017, Vizio got busted for tracking everything viewers watched on 11 million TVs — second-by-second — and selling that data without anyone’s permission.
Even Samsung, at one point, politely warned customers not to have sensitive conversations near their TVs.
Because, you know, they were listening. — Washington Post - Samsung Smart TVs Listening
And while we’re talking about TVs acting sketchy, let’s get a little more Orwellian.
In 2017, TV manufacturer Vizio got caught secretly tracking users’ viewing habits on 11 million TVs, collecting second-by-second data on everything people watched — all quietly paired with personal information to target ads.
They were fined $2.2 million and forced to stop… but not before making millions of living rooms feel like audition rooms for targeted commercials.
Meanwhile, Samsung, beyond the microphone issue, once included a privacy policy so tone-deaf it basically warned customers:
“Don’t discuss sensitive personal information in front of your TV.”
Nothing like sitting on your couch and realizing your TV is the most attentive family member in the house.
In a beautiful twist of irony, the “idiot box” became the smartest snitch in the room. — Wikipedia - Vizio Smart TV Data Collection
At this point, the only object in our house I fully trust is the toaster.
And even then, it burns my bread like it’s secretly judging my life choices.
And it’s not just shopping habits that give you away.
Social media paints an even sharper portrait.
A study from Cambridge University found that analyzing just 10 Facebook Likes could predict your personality better than your coworkers could.
With 300 Likes, an algorithm could know you better than your spouse.
Think about that: a few harmless clicks and suddenly a machine knows whether you’re introverted, politically leaning, feeling depressed — even whether your parents divorced.
And it doesn’t stop at fun facts.
The infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal showed just how easily this psychological profiling could be weaponized for political advertising, whispering exactly the right messages into exactly the right ears.
At this point, your Facebook Likes aren’t just a window into your soul.
They’re basically your autobiography — written one click at a time. — Wikipedia - Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Likes Study
Convenience Always Has a Price Tag
Look, I’m not against technology.
We still use Alexa.
We still let our vacuum bumble around unsupervised.
(Although now I do glance suspiciously when it bumps into the bathroom door when I shower.)
But here’s the part no one likes admitting:
“Convenience and surveillance are two sides of the same coin.”
Every moment you save — by asking Alexa for the “feels like” temperature in Celsius or having your Roku suggest a show — you’re paying, quietly, with another little piece of privacy.
You wanted to know if flights to Dublin were cheap?
They wanted to know if you were ready to buy.
You dreamed out loud about moving?
They dreamed up a way to monetize it.
When Algorithms Play Fortune Teller (and Get It Wrong)
Of course, predicting our behavior doesn’t always go according to plan.
Police departments, eager to jump on the prediction bandwagon, have experimented with predictive policing algorithms — trying to forecast crime before it happens.
In theory, it sounds like Minority Report.
In practice, it’s often closer to Murphy’s Law.
One program in Chicago tried to generate a “heat list” of individuals most likely to be involved in future shootings.
At one point, over half of young Black men in the city ended up on the list — many of them never committing a crime — highlighting obvious bias problems.
In other cities, predictive models accidentally created feedback loops:
the more an area had been policed before, the more the system insisted it should be policed again, whether or not anything was actually happening.
At this rate, it wouldn’t be surprising if an algorithm predicted a donut shop crime spree — simply because that’s where the cops were getting coffee. — NAACP - Predictive Policing Problems
Should You Panic?
Honestly?
No.
You can block trackers, change privacy settings, and tape over your laptop camera if it helps you sleep.
Maybe you should. It’s like brushing your teeth: boring, necessary, and something future-you will be thankful for.
But the real power isn’t in fighting the machines.
It’s in understanding them.
Because once you realize you’re not the customer — you’re the product —
you can choose, freely, what to offer and what to keep.
And even if the algorithms predict your next vacation, your next house, your next craving…
they still can’t predict a human being who knows exactly who they are.
And that, if you think about it, might just be the most powerful thing left on the internet.