Unfortunately, yes our phones do listen to us on a daily basis. But what do they actually do with this information? Northeastern University's computer science academics found that 17,000 of the most popular apps were recording the phone screen and then sending out that information to third parties. If a person feels as if an app they've downloaded is saving their data or accessing other personal information, often times deleting the app does no good at all. Once a person has downloaded and agrees to the terms and conditions of the app, the app has access to whatever was agreed to even if the app is deleted from the device.
However, the intentions of a majority of technology companies is not malicious, it's actually to help us. The purpose of listening and collecting data is so that they can more effectively target ads that will be of interest to each individual person. The data collected by trustworthy sources is only used to assist in advertisement by selecting people who have expressed interest in that product or a similar one. Although, thinking about our information being passed around not knowing who knows what can still be a frightening thought.
Being listened to all the time by our phones and other smart devices is actually not illegal in the slightest. If you feel paranoid about your information, read the terms and conditions very carefully before you authorize access to the next app you download.
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