In the next few weeks, your iPhone will start recording everything it hears when you start writing a Facebook status update.
The latest version of Facebook for iOS and Android will atomically recognize the song you’re listening to or TV show you’re watching add it to your status. This new “audio recognition” feature starts listening as soon as you start typing a new status. You no longer have to tap “Listening To” or “Watching” in the status-creation screen. If you want to opt in to the feature, you can by clicking a new button inside the status window. When there’s a match, a small smiley face will pop over Facebook‘s feelings button.
The devil is always in the details, and as Gawker pointed out “No elaboration was provided as to how your sound recordings are anonymized and aggregated—there are a lot of ways to deploy those words and have it mean pretty much squat. I asked for clarification on how information you didn’t use—say, your phone starts recording the TV show you’re watching, and you change your mind because you don’t want your friends to see you’re watching USA reruns at noon.”
If you are wondering if you agreed to this in the terms and conditions of Facebook, you are wrong. The Facebook Data Use Policy states nothing about audio data and what they will do with that information.
Facebook currently has 1.28 billion users and growing.
