Six ways you didn’t know you were being watched

Have you updated your privacy settings recently?

It’s no secret that we’re constantly being monitored. Whether you voluntarily choose to share personal information through social media or not, it turns out a surprising amount of intel about your life is being tracked on a daily basis. This is some serious next level creeping.

Your Smartphone

One of the most disturbing discoveries is easily the ‘Frequent Locations’ menu found on most smartphones including iPhone and Android. A quick navigation through “Settings” to “Privacy”, “Location Services” then “System Services” will bring you to “Frequent Locations”, a creepy snapshot of your daily movements. We’re talking everywhere you’ve been, how many times you went there and how long you stayed.

According to Buzzfeed, the data is only stored on your phone “in order to learn places that are significant to you” and doesn’t actually get shared with any other parties but it definitely makes you wonder. 

Websites

CTV News reported that many websites track not only how many views they’re getting but also who the viewers are. For instance, many e-commerce sites keep track of what you’re shopping for and will send reminders about items stored in virtual shopping carts. This is the explanation behind ads for those shoes you’ve been scoping suddenly appearing in your sidebar. The more you browse, the more advertisers ‘learn’ about you so that they can create marketing targeted to your interests.

Email

Even your email isn’t safe from scrutiny. CTV News also reported that email providers including Gmail scan emails for keywords and content to create target ads. Keith Murphy, CEO of Ottawa-based Internet security firm Defence Intelligence told CTV, “It’s not anonymous anymore. They know your name, your birthday, they know you’re going to this site, staying for that long, and so on and so forth.”

Rewards Card

Hands up if you collect Air Miles or Optimum points? Besides taking up real estate in your wallet and earning you the odd free bottle of shampoo, retailers use these to track what you buy, where you buy it and how often. This can mean everything from knowing your Starbucks order to being able to track your monthly flow. This information then gets sent out to third party marketing and advertising firms for use.

Smart TV

Most TVs these days are ‘smart’ meaning they are connected to the internet opening you up to all kinds of tracking. Samsung recently came under fire when someone noticed a line in the terms and conditions for one of their smart TVs warning users to, “be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.” Samsung claims the warning was placed in the terms ‘just in case’ but many users have opted to disable the feature so that they don’t have to worry about someone accidentally listening in.

Social Media

This one may seem obvious but it still came as a shock to U.S. Congressman Aaron Schock whose spending spree was exposed by an Associated Press reporter earlier this year. Using an app called Creepy, which maps out exactly where you’ve been using data collected from your Instagram, AP uncovered a bunch of bogus expenses including flights on private jets and tickets to a Katy Perry concert reported The Star. The exposé was so devastating that the Congressman eventually resigned his post.