Recently, someone tweeted about how WhatsApp had been using microphone on their Android smartphone in the background. They posted a screenshot about how WhatsApp used the microphone during the late night hours when the phone was not even in use by anyone and when everyone was asleep. Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, also commented that WhatsApp cannot be trusted because of this activity.
If you also want to find out about the microphone usage on your Android smartphone, then there is a quick method. Here is how you can find out which app has been using the microphone at which time and for how long:
- Open Android settings by tapping on the Settings icon in the App Launcher.
- On the Settings screen, select Privacy and then Privacy Dashboard.
- On the Privacy dashboard screen, tap on Microphone.
- It will display you the complete details about the microphone usage. On this screen, you can see at what time, which app was using the microphone. It also shows for how long this app used the microphone.
So this is how you can find out how your smartphone’s microphone has been in use. But there is a limitation in this method. If you use this method, you can only view the microphone activity for the last 24 hours only. Any activity before the last 24 hours is not displayed.
This method can be used to find any apps running in the background that have been using your microphone or camera or any other features of your Android device. On some of the newer models, Android shows a green dot whenever your camera or microphone is in use so that you can visually see the microphone usage in real time. If you think that an app should not be using the microphone, then you can revoke its permissions.