Mobile Phones – Spying Made Easy
Most people may be aware that there is a tendency for the marketing information that pops up on your phone, seems to be related to conversations you had, or things you looked up in your browser.
On smartphones, this happens by design.
So while your smartphone is able to make phone calls to anybody at anytime, they can and do, a lot more than just make calls.
Everyday People With Everyday Phones
To make things very simple, I will only discuss standard model Apple iPhones or Android based phones like Samsung. I will also limit this article to those people who only use the manufacturer’s recommended app store.
Smartphone Key Components
Most smartphones today have the following key components.
- A Camera
- A Microphone
- A Keyboard
- A Bluetooth Transceiver
- A 3G/4G/5G Mobile Phone Transceiver.
- A WiFi Transceiver.
- A NFC Transceiver (if credit card usage is offered).
- A GPS Receiver.
This is How You Are Tracked.
When we review the main components of your smartphone, tracking is only possible via a transceiver(Transmitter/Receiver) as “transmission” is a requirement for a scanning device to locate, or monitor your phone. However, in combination, the information that is transmitted by your phone can contain any data from any, or all, of the other components.
This is how a person can spy on you, with or without, video or audio.
- You download an app that is provided by a retailer, or large business.
- You download an app that is provided by your government.
- You download a malicious app, from a malicious link in SMS, or browser, or email.
- You use a tracking app supplied by your phone provider, such as “Find my Phone”.
- You use any standard app that requests to have access to your “Location Services.
- You use a standard web browser while using your smartphone.
- Your phone is on and within range of a mobile phone/cell tower.
- You use WiFi on an unprotected network (public free WiFi).
- You have Bluetooth enabled.
Now to make things even easier for companies to track you, you are encouraged to “sync” all your devices. This means that in addition to the built-in tracking possibilities within the smartphone, you can also be tracked between any device you ever use, home PC, Internet cafe, etc. This is syncing and additional tracking is done for you to provide a more convenient user experience, by companies such as Apple and Google and even some of the common internet browser apps.
Who Tracks or Spies On You
There is a very large audience here. But I will provide you with the most common, from the top down.
- Your mobile phone carrier
- Your mobile phone manufacturer
- Your retailer
- Your government
- Anybody
- Cybercriminals
What, you said “anybody”! Yes, I did.
It turns out that information about your phone is distributed by your mobile phone carrier to third parties and they in turn. pass it on to more companies and this continues for up to 4 more times. In the end, it is accessible by anybody who wants to pay a small sum of money to locate you. In the USA, this can be as little as a few dollars.
In the meantime, other companies gather considerably more detailed information about you, the worst being Google and Facebook, via their apps and this is where the smartphone really works hard on spying on you.
If that is not enough, then the cybercriminals are working behind the scenes using both Bluetooth technology and public WiFi networks to capture everything else. Remember that they already have a lot of background information relating to your phone number, which includes name, address and account details, which was obtained from sources, indirectly provided by the telecommunications companies.
You Gave Permission To Allow Tracking/Spying
Both Android and iOS require you to give permission for any app to access your camera, microphone, location and your photo library. So in effect, the responsibility of keeping your phone and data secure is put in your hands. Unfortunately, nearly every app you install will ask for permission to access your other components and in many cases will tell you that it can’t work unless you give permission.
As a general rule, you can be sure that if you have given permission to use those components, then you have enabled “spying” of some sort. What you will never know is who is doing the spying. Your personal data is so valuable, it is currently being sold to the highest bidder, even by your telecommunications company.
HOWTO: Take Back Your Privacy
This is difficult to do on a smartphone as it requires connection to a telecommunications company to work as a phone. However, there are things you can do to limit your exposure to additional tracking and spying.
- Turn off Bluetooth. Only turn it on when you need to be connected to an essential device such as hands-free car system.
- Turn off WiFi connections to “unknown source” and never use any free public WiFi services. Connect only to known WiFi networks that require strong passwords and have a reputable security infrastructure that you trust.
- Completely power off your device, or carry it in a Faraday shielded satchel when you are not using it to receive calls. (If using a satchel, make sure that it has at least 100dB RF attenuation).
- Never install any Google or Facebook app.
- Don’t install any Retailer app.
- Don’t install any Government app.
- Turn off all of your “Location Services” for all apps.
- Turn off all “Camera Access” for all apps, except for the original “camera” app.
- Turn off all “Microphone Access” for all apps, except for the original “phone” app.
- Do not store credit cards on your phone. NFC, while secure, is a high risk for abuse by criminals that actually manage to steel your mobile phone.
- Use a third party, privacy protecting, web browser such as DuckDuckGo, Brave or Firefox Focus.
So now that you have followed the steps above, you still need to consider the mobile phone in the same way as if you were standing and conducting a conversation in a crowed room. Consider a mobile phone conversation, like a “public” line that anybody can listen to. The current mobile network infrastructure is not built for privacy, or security.
Avoid Device to Device Tracking
To solve the problem of being tracking between other devices and your mobile phone, you would be well advised to conduct all of your other Internet activities on systems that do not require you to identify yourself in any way, by signing into their services, for example, signing into Google or Facebook.
At home you can set up a privacy respecting PC as detailed on this website.
Smartphone at Home: Home Security Breached
When any apps are installed on your mobile device that have access to the internet, they will use the mobile phone network when you are away from home. The mobile phone companies protect their clients by making sure that one mobile phone does not interfere with the services of another client, on the same subnet.
When you are at home and have your mobile phone connected to your private home network, this is no longer the case. Tracking, spying and malware distribution deployed by the apps can continue to extend throughout all of the devices connected on your home network, similar to any other device. See my article on local area network privacy for details.
The Final Step – Encrypted Communication
If you need to secure your voice or video communications, you would need to consider installing a self-hosted system such as NextCloud Talk. For web browsing, you should also consider using a VPN service for your phone as this will provide the necessary encryption and anonymity for use on the public Internet.