Facebook seeks technology patent to activate microphone of smartphones. Image Courtesy – Time
Facebook has filed a patent application in the USA for a complex process to activate users’ devices to record the environmental audio surrounding and fetch that in the form of a database back to the company. In that way, the company may gather the detailed information of your conversation, any sound in your room or bedroom, which is completely disrespectful to your privacy.
As per the news report of ‘Metro’ in the USA, the application described that Facebook might turn on your mobile phone’s microphone to start recording from a distance and without physical contact. The company would incorporate ‘high-pitched audio signals’ in ‘broadcasting material’ that would be imperceptible to human beings. Though a human being is not able to hear it, it would still be audible through a mobile device.
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Facebook commented that it had no intention for any time to implement the ‘technology’ explained in the application. If that was the logic, then a question may come to anybody’s mind – why does the company apply for a patent so early?
Allen Lo, the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Head of Intellectual Property at Facebook, said that approaching for a patent was a common practice to prevent the belligerence of other companies. He also said that the approach for a patent usually involves focusing on future technology, and it was often hypothetical, obtaining commercialising tendencies of other companies.
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In his words, Facebook was trying to get the patent just to protect people from other companies that might want to record private information of the people through their phones’ microphones someday or sometime. Allen Lo has assured the people talking to the media that Facebook would never use the technology that it was trying to patent, and also assured that the technology has not been incorporated in any of their products.
