Kelli Burns, a US professor in media studies at the University of South Florida, claims Facebook has a plug in installed that could listen in to its users’ phone conversations. Burns says the plug in had been used since 2014 only in Facebook users in the US.

The company acknowledged it was using the plug in, but only to ‘facilitate’ its users’ choices. Burns suggests it is used to collect data of interest to the users to push relevant advertising content. The professor claims she talked over her mobile phone with someone and then her Facebook page had ads relevant to the topics she had discussed.

She made it clear that she was not completely convinced that Facebook was stealing her conversations. A company representative told newspaper Independent that Facebook did not use the app’s microphone to promoter ads, but rather sent advertising material based on the users’ interests and demographics and not collection of voice data. He added that switching off the microphone was easy and could be done by following the relevant page guide.