Have you ever wonder that an Android smartphone can reveal all your physical activity? Sounds weird right. But, it is true, a secret feature in the Android operating system can easily tell the tech giant Google that exactly what you are doing in the real world.
Your Smartphone Is Telling Google Exactly What You’re Doing In The Real World
An Android smartphone can reveal your physical activity to Google and other applications installed on the phone, according to the Independent. The information on the activity is monitored, processed and disclosed by the armies of the sensors inside the mobile device.
This information is accessed by the Google’s ‘Activity Recognition’, a feature of the built-in Android devices that in a fraction of seconds, concludes the type of activity, the report said.
For example, if you are walking from the subway station to the office, the Activity Recognition obtains information of the location via sensor, gyroscope, proximity and other sensors to locate your location in real time and understand the type of activity, that is, on foot, and based on what’s happening to the phone itself and not only that even it also reveal the estimated time of the user on his/her screen.
“The Activity Recognition API is built on top of the sensors available in a device,” says the tech giant Google.
“Device sensors provide insight into what users are currently doing. However, with dozens of signals from various sensors and slight variations in the way people do things, detecting what users are doing is not easy,” the tech giant Google added.
The Activity Recognition can even tell when you are doing more than one thing at once. For each activity, the API automatically rates the findings out of 100. So, the higher the number, the better the possibility that you are actually doing that activity.
This information is shared with smartphone applications as well. The Activity Recognition usually remain hidden in ‘Other’ permits and, therefore, it goes unnoticed by users.
There is no way to disable the API, but the permissions can be accessed for each application by going to the application settings. So, if you do not want the particular application, to know your activity details then from settings you can deactivate the authorization of Activity Recognition.
So, what do you think about this? Simply share your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
