US local time on June 28 news, US social giant Facebook (194.32, -1.91, -0.97%) was revealed to apply for a patent, be able to monitor the user's behavior, recording the user's dialogue and ambient sounds, etc., this let this Facebook, once faced with huge public pressure for privacy issues, is again being questioned.
According to the technology media Mashable, the patent relates to microphones that can monitor Facebook users silently. This patent will enable users' devices to record user's conversations or environmental sounds, etc., and transmit the audio data back to Facebook.
Facebook applied for the patent in December 2016 and published it on June 14 this year. The patent description specifically mentions Facebook's largest source of revenue - advertising, which describes how devices that install a particular application can be opened via the 'Activation Module' Microphone, monitor the advertisement in the ordinary family.
The patent introduces a special microphone-triggered scene. Although Facebook mentioned that high-frequency sound is part of the ambient sound collection process, these sounds do not activate the recording function of the Facebook application in question. This means that the patent Does not require the user's mobile phone microphone to continue to open.
Facebook's patent shows that smartphones and other 'client devices' are connected to 'home broadcasting devices' via Bluetooth or other protocols. Based on patents, this may include signing in to a Facebook account on a specific set-top box, or simply automatically identifying the connection. To some broadcast devices on the same local network without any additional Facebook login information. However, the patent does not explicitly describe any specific scenarios.
After determining that the phone is close to the broadcasting device, the application in the patent will 'activate the client device to perform operations such as recording ambient sound'. The activated microphone will listen to the 'ambient sound associated with the advertiser's content'.
The application then analyzes the recorded ambient sound and searches for 'audio characteristics'. The patent describes it as 'high-frequency modulated sound'. The sound that cannot be heard by the human ear may be short-lived or continuous. The purpose is to determine whether the broadcast viewer is listening to all or part of the content of the advertisement and pass it back to Facebook. The patent shows that the application can also tell Facebook that the TV viewer has skipped the advertisement by installing the interception tool.
In response, Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel, Allen Lo, stated in a statement: 'In order to prevent violations from other companies, filing patents is a common practice. Therefore, patents tend to focus on forward-looking technologies, which are often speculative in nature. , And may be commercialized by other companies. The technology in this patent has not been incorporated into any of our products, and it may never be.