5 Everyday Tech That Can Track Your Activity

It’s virtually impossible to live in modern society and not be tracked in some way. Websites track you, the apps you need and use every day could be the worst offenders in privacy invasion, and the devices you use it is tracking you, too. And even if you turn off the phone and go outside, you could being watched by the widespread Flock cameras that might be in your neighborhood. We know that tracking devices are all around every single one of us, all the time, every day. But sometimes you don’t even realize a device can track you in the first place.

Now, to walk things back a bit. We’re not out to terrify you into thinking your smart toaster is equivalent to the “1984” telescreen. Oftentimes, tracking is inevitable and even benign. Most electronic devices connected to the internet and receiving updates need basic usage telemetry to help the manufacturer fix bugs and optimize performance. With that in mind, these are five everyday tech devices that might be tracking your activity — for better or for worse.

In recent years, we’ve seen a scary news headline that says that Wi-Fi routers can be used like sonars to “see” inside buildings. Sadly, it’s no exaggeration. A Wi-Fi router can be utilized to map its surroundings. The technology is so sensitive it could theoretically track someone’s gait when walking, and possibly their breathing, even in another room.

What’s worse, a bad actor wouldn’t even have to compromise the network or buy a $10,000 frequency analyzer tool to do it; They’d only need a cheap smartphone kept in the network’s vicinity. Victims wouldn’t know when they were being tracked, either, and the more devices victims have, the more accurate the tracking gets. We already have concerns about mass surveillance with cameras, but now imagine the thousands upon thousands of Wi-Fi networks in every city and state retrofitted into a tracking apparatus that has x-ray vision — and imagine what dark forces out there would love to get their hands on said apparatus.

Now for a dose of reality. We’ve seen that this works, in theory, but so far we haven’t found documented cases where this has been abused. There are certainly concerning trends in that direction, like court cases arguing that that authorities should be able to track you with WiFi-based location, and consumer devices made by shady companies that boast Wi-Fi motion detection. On the flip side, a lot of the research around Wi-Fi sensing has been focused on potentially good use cases. We’d probably all be okay if grandma’s Wi-Fi network was leveraged to alert us in the event she takes a fall. For the possible unsavory uses of the tech, it may be possible to mitigate them by polluting the real data with false data.

Let’s not beat around the bush: your smart TV could be spying on you. It’s something most people never think of, and yet at the same time, it’s completely unsurprising. Tech companies are some of the biggest privacy abusers. Why wouldn’t they take the big screen situated in your living room, the locus of your home’s activity, and track its behavior? Consumer Reports explains how smart TVs use ACR (automatic content recognition) to track you. Basically, ACR is “watching” what you watch, compiling and analyzing that info, and then using it to recommend further content. That Consumer Reports article also has a guide on how to disable ACR in most major TV brands.

In the past, we’ve seen companies do all sorts of spooky things with smart TVs. Samsung was once caught saying that it would collect personal data unrelated to a voice command query over your microphone (the clause has since been removed from Samsung’s privacy policy). There was also that thoroughly dystopian UAB (unique audio beacon) tech that allowed advertisers to figure out who exactly was watching their ads by pinging nearby smartphones with inaudible, ultrasonic noise. Case in point, tech companies have stooped to some disturbing stuff before, and they might try again.

However, we’re not saying you should throw away your fancy OLED panel in favor of an old CRT. Just do some digital hygiene. Go into your smart TV’s settings and disable analytics and ACR; disable features you never use, like the microphone for voice commands; learn how to disable ads on your TV, if possible. If you do all your watching through a streaming box, then you might even disconnect the smart TV from Wi-Fi entirely, since the streaming box is the only thing that needs to be connected.

Smart glasses with cameras seem like a cool way to film things hands-free… except when they enable loathsome individuals to secretly film others in public. We’ve already discussed at length where Meta Ray-Bans and their ilk should and shouldn’t be used, and laws are already in the pipeline to curb their misuse, but it’s not just unsavory people using the glasses for unsavory purposes — It’s the companies, like Meta. They’re not as concerned with filming other people as much as filming you, the user.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports how Meta’s smart glasses in particular don’t have any strictly-offline functionality. AI voice chats and media recordings get pumped into the cloud and may in some cases see employees annotating them for AI training. It would appear, according to a Svenska Dagbladet investigation, that users may not always control what’s recorded and uploaded. Imagine going to the bathroom with the glasses on — but not recording — and someone on the other side of the world seeing the whole thing. One of the workers quoted in the aforementioned report said that the stuff they see on a daily basis would unleash “enormous scandals.”

While you might think that the same privacy risk applies to a smartphone, it’s important to remember that a smartphone isn’t sitting on your face, pointed at your surroundings whether or not you’re using the camera. Smart glasses inherently introduce a new class of privacy risk. Considering Meta is up to its neck in a huge class action lawsuit as a result of everything we’ve mentioned, we’d say this is the one device on this list most should avoid entirely.

It’s impossible to deny the benefits of a doorbell camera. You can see who’s at your door — even when not at home — as a security measure, a means to avoid unwanted visitors, and a way to keep tabs on anyone who’s entered your property line. As you can probably guess, however, having a camera in your home that’s owned by a tech company requires trusting that only you will be able to see the footage. We’re not just fearmongering baselessly. Ring — one of the most popular doorbell camera makers in the U.S. — was accused by the FTC of spying on users without their consent.

There’s also been growing concern in recent years that the Ring cameras belonging to your neighbors are surveilling and tracking you. We all know that one curmudgeon who makes everyone’s life miserable at the HOA meeting, who spends half their day with a drawn curtain in one hand and a phone dialed to 911 in the other. Now that curmudgeon has a camera that’s on even when they sleep, a camera which footage they can pass along to the police and get them involved even when you’re innocent. And there are probably a lot of these cameras in your neighborhood.

Again, we wouldn’t necessarily advocate for getting rid of your Ring camera. Instead, go into the settings and change a few. Some of the things we’ve mentioned — like Ring Neighbors — can be disabled entirely. Of course, Ring is just one company on the market making these doorbell cameras. It doesn’t matter which brand you’re using. Limit what privacy settings you can, and be wary of any camera-enabled device that’s filming continuously in the background, 24/7.

Once you get used to controlling your lights verbally with your smartphone’s AI assistant, it’s painful to go back to the olden days of getting up off the couch and switching lights on manually. Now, you can fill your home with an army of smart devices that make things more secure and convenient — and affordably so. Once again, we extend a gentle reminder that these tech devices are made by companies that may not respect your privacy, or even adhere to their own privacy policy. There’s ample evidence to suggest they’re listening in constantly, gathering information, and potentially sharing it. And if they’re not listening, the devices themselves may be vulnerable to hackers.

First we’d say, use common sense. Don’t put an indoor camera in your bedroom, for example, and be careful what brands you buy from. You only have to Google a device’s manufacturer name paired with keywords like “security vulnerabilities” to quickly find the ones to avoid. Don’t make common Wi-Fi mistakes like using weak, outdated encryption for your home network, since it’s the bedrock of your smart home. Consider keeping some “dumb” devices, like a non-smart front door lock, to limit the attack surface.

In truth, most of this stuff is basic security practice that you should already be doing on your PC and smartphone anyway. Things like setting strong passwords for smart home platforms, like Google Home, and keeping all devices updated to the latest software. Hackers love an easy, low-hanging fruit, so even doing the bare minimum makes you a much less desirable target.