I had visited an ophthalmologist who used Apple Notes to keep track of his patients. He had no idea about the privacy implications of his choices.

However, my most nerve racking experience was talking to my therapist, while their stock Android was right next to them. Even when I mentioned my privacy concerns, they didn't bother to get rid of it.

What's wrong with Apple Notes?

Your therapist can't even have a phone in the room?

What’s wrong with Apple Notes?

I assume it's because of HIPAA requirements. The doctor is essentially recording patient information into his private Apple account. Obviously that depends on what info he was putting there. If it was just mundane stuff like scheduling, then it's probably fine.

Your therapist can't even have a phone in the room?

I would prefer my psychological issues to not be turned into marketing campaigns. If you still don't understand what I am talking about, you should probably check the Privacy Policy of Google and Meta.

To save you some time: Google and Meta are monitoring the conversations using the device's microphone, to better understand what products you may be interested in. You have noticed, that ads are often related to the topics that you discuss face to face.

Google and Meta are monitoring the conversations using the device's microphone

I've heard this claim many times for decades but never seen any legitimate evidence.

The only evidence I've seen is accidental recordings from digital "assistants" who mishear the wake phrase. But those only last a couple seconds. Meta has no such assistant.

In addition, Apple and Google both have had mic indicators for when the mic is on and listening for a long time so they'd have to somehow compromise the operating system as well.

To add to this, there's evidence disproving that Apple and Google are listening 24/7. An article goes over how a phone uses way more power when doing an "OK Google/Hey Siri” request than simply scrolling through Meta/Twitter/Snapchat/etc. Basically it'd take a shit ton of noticeable battery power to constantly be listening to people and phoning home, so they don't. What they did do instead was take secret screenshots and send them to 3rd party sources.

To my surprise nobody delved into “open source” android code to find if any traces.

To save you some time: Google and Meta are monitoring the conversations using the device's microphone

This is not happening. It is not something that would be possible to hide, there are so many different places this could (and would) be detected by someone with the right know-how (data/battery consumption in particular).

Try and pay attention to how many ads you get that are completely irrelevant to you. It will happen way more often than ones that match up with your conversations.