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Will Your Hearing Aids Be Spying On YOU?

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I know it is maybe far fetched, but, see below:

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In ways they do! You would be surprised with the information that your audiologist can get from connecting your aids to the computer software.

I know most cell phones do now but I wasn’t aware of any with gps. What specific models have gps? I know some have accelerometers but gps burns battery and I can’t think of a good reason to put that in them. Can you name some HAs with gps?

WH

@WhiteHat I guess maybe Bluetooth in-conjunction with smartphone, they can trace the location, I guess that’s where find my HA come from!!!

Which bring me to something else:
Do hearing aids have a kill-switch?

I know maybe I am OTT, but you never know what those 3 letters agencies can do.

I don’t know of any hearing aids that do, but i know of earbuds/headphones that do (the nuraphones / nura brand in general, when bought as a subscription, could be remotely disabled if you stopped paying)

It’s totally possible, but I’ve yet to see that in hearing aids (yet…)

Maybe, just like the “find your aid” settting only works if the aids were already connected to the app prior to being lost, so not opening the app should keep your secrets safe from those 3 letter agencies? Im totally guessing here…

The Jabra EP20’s have the “find my hearing aids” feature but also allows the user to save a “favorite” set of parameters within the app for a particular location. Location services within my iPhone allows these features to function which I can turn on or off.

In reply to @RSW

But this is based on them being connected to the smartphone, so no smartphone or internet connection and your “safe”

@cyborg said:

when bought as a subscription, could be remotely disabled if you stopped paying)

But only if you were connected to the internet or smartphone app right?

Good point. But I am not sure that is correct .You can find the hearing aids even if you are well away from your cell phone. Something is going on inside the hearing aids that allows them to be tracked.

No, they can’t. Too little data to send to spies. Hearing aids cannot record conversations and do not have GPS or a camera. But the smartphone you are holding in your hands is a “legal” spy bug.

Geofencing via the phone GPS is used for program changes. Find my Aid uses proximity signalling. Data logging keeps environmental data.

Streaming audio and location data to the phone when the aids are not in an actual streaming/call mode? I’d doubt that as it would kill the batteries and is the absolute enemy of modern aid design.

Your phone/alexa does it passively all the time though.

’s cannot use GPS as for that you need a satellite connection system with antennas as for instance your phone. And if you want to add such a system in your HA you will need a lot of space. Your battery consumption will also rise more then for a super or WiFi connectivity. So don’t worry, don’t panic.

What happens in find my aids is that your connected phone will remember the location were it last connected to you aids and if it still has, or re- gets the connection because the batteries didn’t die in the mean time, will be able to point you to where your aids are or have been last seen. In the contrary a cellphone connects to antenna’s and has to be online all the time to receive signals. Next to that is able to contact your aids if they are nearby and that is what it does.

Their is a huge log- file in your HA’s which can be written to and read out. Programs you used, programs you made, and for how long, settings you changed, counting used time to allow signals in trials about returning the device, how many times you did a start up or a mute, how long and when you used BT etc.
The available memory for these tasks is very small because this doesn’t need much space. It will even be big enough to take up location dates given by your phone if this would be necessary. Question only which moment or place do you want to record. The HA already has to collect enough data and do it’s job without this extra information. If you want continuesly GPS tracking it is like creating a movie and for that it needs a lot more space. More then available in a HA. And what would be the sentence to collect this movie and build in the space of your cheap small HA?

Stay calm, big brother is watching you. But this GPS function isn’t foreseen at the moment.

And for the rest, yes if you don’t want you provider to collect your usage data which can be spied you have to say so and he/ she has to programm this in the fitting software. In the Netherlands this is a privacy issue and the provider should ask permission to collect these data either way. Some fitting software even show that patient logging is not yet set if the HA’s are connected. But I suspect the fitter will leave it as is because they are or aren’t used to change these settings.

In reply to @Emile030

@Emile030 said:

In the Netherlands this is a privacy issue and the provider should ask permission to collect these data either way. Some fitting software even show that patient logging is not yet set if the HA’s are connected. But I suspect the fitter will leave it as is because they are or aren’t used to change these settings.

Interesting! I’ve recently started and in the programming software (Target) I discovered that data logging had been enabled by the audi who sold me these aids. Disappointing that they did not ask my permission, did not tell me they had enabled logging, did not mark the check box for permission in the software… really I think all audis should ask permission for logging, at least as a courtesy, even if it’s not a legal requirement (yet?).

This was quite an interesting read! Personally whenever I attend a protest I always turn my hearing aids on “flight mode” Just in case, while unlikely there are ways for police and the like to use Bluetooth/phone data as a way to get your information.

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