this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2026
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Earlier this year the FBI, desperate to to make Kash Patel look competent, released video in the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping that shouldn't have existed, but for Guthrie's porch camera spying on her via Google, and then fortuitously capturing some footage of her kidnapper.
Any device with a camera, microphone and a wireless connection or bluetooth signal is almost certainly spying on you, and while most of that data is likely just used to train AI models, this case tells us it may also be harvested in government databases.
So yes, of course any data you actively give them is being harvested too. Be responsible with your tech.
Is there any evidence you could point me to that this is actually happening? I'm mean with like a stock android phone and without the user actually activating mic or camera.
It's more the fact that MAC addresses have an inherent ability to track you, and many such companion devices you might interact with are in fixed locations.
Modern security conscious Wifi devices address this by randomising MAC addresses - they're no longer fixed for wifi. You can even configure different wifi networks to have randomised per-connection or per-network (default per-connection), so you can still set up MAC filtering easily.
Bluetooth unfortunately requires fixed MAC addresses as a core part of its pairing functionality. What's more many connections can require you to provide bluetooth contact data - the same data used for covid contact tracing - eg Ford's implementation of Android Auto among others.
So your car might not only be tracking you with its internal GPS and cellular 4G connection, it also wants to know wherever you go with your phone, based on the Bluetooth LE devices you ping.
As such you should turn your bluetooth off whenever you're not using it.
Yeah okay, but MAC tracking is something else than a device using camera or microphone in the background without your explicit permission
Yeah with that they're likely talking about apps spying on you. That isn't really a phone thing, but pinning down exactly which apps do it is hard. Almost certainly it's Facebook apps (especially the hidden system apps they get manufacturers to install), wouldn't be surprised if reddit's app does some of that as well.
Personally, I've not had that problem in years, but I run custom ROMs without gapps, and generally try to stick with FOSS apps. However it definitely is a thing where you have a conversation about something around your phone and then soon after see ads for that thing.