Who's Listening?

It is possible for apps that have access to your microphone to start a background task and use your microphone. This can happen when you are not not using the app, or while the app is currently running on your phone. Pretty shocking right? In my peronal experience and in the experience of my friends, simply talking about something in the presence of your phone leads to it appearing on your TikTok for you page in the next few days. There is countless evidence that apps like TikTok listen in on conversations, even prompting the government to ban the app from congress. This functionality obviously poses a huge security risk to the private information of millions of people.

Hypothetically, the app “Who’s Listening?” would allow users to see which apps are turning on the mic in the background. The app would also give users the option to revoke the app’s access to media inputs. Unfortunately, I have not found a way to make the app function. I hope to continue pursuing this project as my education in computer science advances, and take courses in mobile dev and OS to understand the limitations of my app better. My work on this project can be found here on github.