Conspiracy theory - smartphones as spy devices

A conspiracy theory has been in the news recently for suggesting that the microphone on smartphones can be remotely switched on to record conversations.

Some claims suggest that some malware apps can use the microphone even when the phone has been switched off and later transmit the saved recording. This seemed a little far-fetched to me, until recently, my phone which I had switched off the night before, woke up to deliver the alarm I had set for 6 am. Playing with the user interface, I realized that this is indeed a feature. You can set whether the alarm setting should wake up the phone.

It is not too much of a leap to believe that a resident app could do the same. The truly paranoid would now need to not only switch off their phones, but also remove the batteries.

Interesting timing then, for Motorola and Google to start launching phones that do not have a user removable battery.