Facebook argues that the phone isn’t “always listening” and that it never stores the raw audio when it is listening. The platform said explicitly on its help pages that it doesn’t record conversations, but that it does use the audio to identify what’s happening around the phone.25 Then again, it doesn’t need to record conversations. All it needs is a few keywords. Note that this is presented as a friendly service. The help page used to read: “If your phone’s microphone has trouble matching what you’re listening to or watching, the room you’re in may be loud or a commercial may be on.”26
