Facebook Patent Imagines Triggering Your Phone's Mic When a Hidden Signal Plays on TV (gizmodo.com)

Based on a recently published patent application, Facebook could one day use ads on television to further violate a user's privacy. From a report: The patent is titled "broadcast content view analysis based on ambient audio recording." It describes a system in which an "ambient audio fingerprint or signature" that's inaudible to the human ear could be embedded in broadcast content like a TV ad. When a hypothetical user is watching this ad, the audio fingerprint could trigger their smartphone or another device to turn on its microphone, begin recording audio and transmit data about it to Facebook.

Comments

Re:There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[mjwx]

What can really be done?
I explain shit like this to people, they call me paranoid.
I show them proof, they say they don't care.
Privacy? They say they have nothing to hide.

Then when their private details and credit card numbers are published online they shout "why didn't someone do something about this" in shrill nasal tones.

Someone could have done something about this Karen, you could have Karen. But you said it was too hard and too inconvenient to practice a few basic self preservation measures. You wanted to gratification now Karen and this is how you pay for it. I swear you'd still take sweeties from strangers if your mother didn't drill it into your head as a kid, I suspect literally, Karen.