Ultrasonic beacons are sound waves inaudible to normal human ear, neither can be seen, but these are there to track your online privacy and transfer your online data to ad companies secretly without making any noise. It is a silence killer of your online privacy which is least noticed by the mobile users. See the best VPN for Android to avoid all kinds of mobile online privacy threats.
What are Ultrasonic Beacons?
Ultrasonic beacons are sound waves with frequencies from 18 kHz to 20 kHz. Humans are unable to hear it, but most mobile devices’ microphones can easily identify and catch the ultrasonic beacons. When these are released from any retail stores or embedded to advertisements and even websites, these inaudible sounds are caught by microphones of your mobile devices. Although it is not an automated process, you have to give permission to certain apps to be able to pick up these ultrasonic beacons.
These ultrasonic beacons are the based on the ultrasonic cross-device tracking technology, which let the ad and marketing companies track your browsing data (read more about online privacy in our ultimate privacy guide). These marketers then build a detailed profile of the users based on the data collected related to your preferred products, search queries, log in and log our time, location etc. without your knowledge, it is really creepy, isn’t it?
How to block the ultrasonic beacons?
Ultrasonic beacons are a threat to your online privacy and it should not silently track your online without your consent. You can avoid it by some measure discusses below;
- Review apps installed: If you have not used an app for ages, delete it. Keep only those apps which you need to avoid clutter and reduce the threat of more apps tracking you silently by detecting ultrasonic beacon waves.
- Check app permissions: The apps you use make sure to check the permissions you have given them at the time of installation, double-check the permissions you have granted for the microphone access to avoid being detected by the ultrasonic beacons. Do it like this;
On Android 7.0 Nougat, go to Settings > Apps > Tap the Gear icon > App permissions
On iOS, navigate to Settings > Privacy > Microphone
3. Use some Brain: There are obvious reasons some apps need the permission to access microphone, like calling apps; Skype, Viber, WhatsApp etc. but why do a shopping app will need it? tracking may be.
