Sunday, January 18, 2026

The Inaudible Surveillance That Linked Your Phone to Stores

The truth about how your phone tracked you without GPS, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, and instead used ultrasonic tracking. Why have advertisers figured out how to follow you from your couch to a store using offline ad tracking? Advertisers were able to track you in the real world without you tapping anything, installing a tracker, or hearing a single noise thanks to your phone. This video breaks down how ultrasonic audio tracking turned background noise into a surveillance layer, why regulators barely slowed it down, and what this taught the ad industry about tracking humans without consent.