When Listening Goes Too Far

By: Dr. Kirkpatrick Williams

Imagine talking with a friend about needing a new pair of sneakers, only to find your social media feed flooded with shoe ads an hour later. Or receiving an alarming number of emails pretending to be from your bank, urging you to “verify your identity.” These aren’t random coincidences, they're everyday symptoms of a world where privacy has become a vanishing luxury.

We are living in an age where technology listens, watches, and predicts, often without our full awareness or consent. And while smart devices and digital assistants offer convenience, they also raise urgent questions: Who’s listening, and what are they doing with our data?

Most of us have experienced it: a casual conversation about travel or a household product, followed shortly by eerily relevant ads online. While companies deny that your devices are "listening" in the literal sense, they admit to tracking user behavior across apps, devices, and even microphones to predict your interests.

It’s unsettling to think that fragments of our private lives, things we say aloud in our homes, can fuel a system built to sell us things. And yet, this hyper-targeted marketing has become so normalized that many people simply shrug and accept it.

We shouldn't.

This type of data surveillance operates in a gray area where consent is often buried in lengthy, unread terms of service. Users deserve clear, accessible information about how their data is collected and used, and the ability to opt out without sacrificing basic functionality.

On another front, the number of phishing and email hijacking attempts has exploded. Scammers have grown increasingly sophisticated, crafting emails that look identical to real messages from banks, employers, or even loved ones.

Clicking one wrong link could expose your personal information or give hackers access to your accounts. These schemes don’t just prey on tech novices; even the most careful users can be fooled by a well-designed fake.

And while spam filters and two-factor authentication help, they’re not enough. Tech companies, regulators, and users must work together to build stronger defenses, report suspicious activity, and educate people, especially the elderly and youth, on how to recognize digital threats.

Privacy is not a privilege, it’s a right. Yet with each update, each app, and each data breach, we’re giving up pieces of that right, often without realizing it. To defend privacy, we must:

• Demand more transparent privacy policies from tech companies
• Support regulations that limit data collection and surveillance
• Use privacy-focused tools like encrypted messaging apps and VPNs
• Educate ourselves and our communities about digital hygiene

We cannot afford to be passive consumers in a surveillance economy. If we don’t speak up and push back, the next generation may grow up believing that constant monitoring is simply part of life. Because the truth is: you should be able to talk about sneakers without your phone turning into a salesman, and check your email without fearing it’s a trap.