In 1969 Apollo 13 arrived at moon the man for the first time walked on the moon all the great planning and engineering behind it was all performed with the help of a simple computer; Apollo guidance computer. It was designed in MIT; its memory was just 16 bits. Yet today you have on your pocket a computer that’s hundreds of millions times faster than this computer. Following this logic your phone could send hundreds of millions of ships to the moon at the same time. Nevertheless, you’re probably not using your phone for such purposes nah! You’re actually just using it for much simpler aims, yet you have no idea what you’re phone is capable of doing, or what he’s actually doing without your knowledge. Well! Some people do know, some companies in Silicon Valley and China, probably some governments. And before you decide it’s still safe let me tell you what they know exactly.

Your phone my friend looks after you all the time, he knows whether you’re awake or asleep. He constantly knows what you are doing. He could watch your movements inside your bedroom, are you standing or sitting, are you moving or constant, are you alone or you have company. Here is this one, he knows your height and your weight, and knows about your health generally. Did that trigger something? Now you might be wondering how in the world he knows my height. This is easy, when you’re talking on phone you probably put the speaker on your ear, this way your phone, who knows that he’s located at the level of your face, your ears level maximum, could then measure the distance between him and the ground using the accelerometer — the same sensor that senses gravity and keeps the screen oriented upward- he’ll add some inches and find your length of course he can do this many times to avoid errors.

Okay this might be easy, but what about the weight how come he knows my weight. No! Not when you sit on it by mistake. Actually the same sensor could do it, it senses as you walk how many steps you took at which speed, in which time span also he calculates how many stairs you climbed and collects all these data that could be analyzed to calculate approximately how much you weigh, oftentimes, you give all these data voluntarily when you download these health apps that reward you for walking and climbing stairs.

Fine! he could describe me — maybe you accepted this — but the question is how could he watch my movements inside my room? Chances are there is a Wi-Fi network where you are right now to which your phone is probably connected. You know what does that mean. It means that there are radio waves all around the place that you are not aware of, and the Wi-Fi relies on these waves to function, these waves could be 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz you’re movements my friend within these invisible waves are actually refracting and reflecting them, the movement of any object be it a door opening, or another person entering the room. A group of scientists in California university in 2018 managed to make the smartphone functions something like a sonar by drawing a 3D map of the radio waves of the Wi-Fi network, now every object moving within these waves and refracts them is monitored precisely, even with existence of multiple walls the precision is 92.6% it’s like the walls are transparent.

Therefore whether you’re an outdoor person or an indoor person there is no guaranteed privacy, needless to say that applications that require your location are abundant probably even abundant on your phone. But you probably do not know what it means that your phone is recording your location because it does so around 40,000 times a day whether by the Internet or using the closest cellular radio towers, of course with a variation in the precision as the Internet is more precise. I’m not saying that location tracking is a bad thing, of course sometimes it’s of a great service to people Google maps for instance can detect traffic congestions thanks to all other drivers inside the traffic that enabled location tracking Google detects a high volume of static drivers in one route and alerts people suggesting a different route. Yet other applications may use it for a different purpose after all it’s not hard to reveal your identity from the places you stay in and the trajectory you take in a daily basis, but despite all some application developers can get away with selling these data as encrypted in that it does not reveal your identity because it doesn’t carry your name with it. No surprise that In December 2018 New York Times reported that they managed to get the data of 1 million people from an app developer who were selling theme with encrypted identities, however, the New York Times reported that they managed to reveal the identity of some of these people easily. Note that anyone can do this and track you in the future just by knowing where you live and where you work and then search for you in the encrypted database. This will explain why some applications manage to remain solvent with all the free features that they offer, as location advertising industry is reaching an estimated $21 billion as of the last year. And always remember if it’s free you and your privacy are the product.

Now let’s take it into another level your phone knew where you are what you are doing what about what is going inside you. In 2015 some researchers in Telefonica center made a phone conclude how bored is its user by a precision of 83% by watching different variables such as the duration in which no calls or messages were received, the number of Apps he opened and for how long, does he switch between Apps or not, does he listen to music or not. Let alone that the mic could know whether you’re sitting in a quiet place or a noisy one. Using the camera sensor the phone will know whether the lights are on or you’re in a dark room. When the phone finds out that you’re getting bored he shows you one of the Buzz Feed articles that are known to be viewed by bored readers — note that this is how they measure the precision, and results were astonishing. Keep in mind that this experiment is just one of many. Your phone knows a lot about your mental and psychological health and states. It could diagnose some of the real psychological disorders such as Depression, Schizophrenia and Bipolar. In 2018 three scientists in the university of California, designed an App you could download to watch how you’re using your phone, the way you type the speed in which you write, the number of typos, as you finish writing a message do you send it immediately or you review it first, and many other behaviors such as how you click on links or how you swipe. Now you’re probably wondering what these behaviors have to do with diagnosis of disorders. These scientists are just automating a famous neuropsychological test called “Trail-tracing test” used to examine the ability of the person on performing simple tasks. Despite being so simple some people with some disorders find a difficulty on performing these tasks. And this App could even predict future issues.

And now let’s take it into a whole another level. Your phone’s scope of surveillance could extend beyond you, and into something that belongs to you, such as, your car. Although sounds like science fiction but Dr. Joshua Siegel for his PhD project in MIT, he developed a mobile application capable of distinguishing the type of breakdown in your car from the change in the noise and vibration.

Finally it’s worth to mention that smartphone companies are also putting considerable efforts to protect such information using the different technologies such as facial recognition and fingerprints or ear-prints so that no one else could make calls or use your phone without permission. Yet as always the weakest part in cyber security are the normal people like you and me. Reckless behaviors may cost you a lot more than you think.

What’s in it for you?

I wrote this article so that the next time you see another privacy and security violation scandal or listen to a debate in that topic, you know exactly what’s on stake. It’s almost impossible for us to live now without our smart technologies so you may also want to learn more about the tradeoffs and the choices that they imply to us. How are these technologies designed and for what purpose? This article is inspired by the Hannah Fry’s book Hello World that I recommend to you as it discusses rising questions such us: Would you let your family’s full medical history be made public if it would help find a cure for cancer? Or which driverless car would you buy, the one that prioritizes your life in the event of a crash, or one that reacts to save as many lives as possible? And many others questions as it shows you the choices algorithms developers face as they do their job. Understanding these algorithms will help you better plan for your future as machines are being involved in more aspects of our lives every day.