Security News > 2022 > April > 'Mute' button in conferencing apps may not actually mute your mic
A new study shows that pressing the mute button on popular video conferencing apps may not actually work like you think it should, with apps still listening in on your microphone.
Most respondents found it unacceptable for the apps to continue to access the microphone and possibly gather data when the mute mode is active.
They found that no matter the mute status, all apps occasionally collected audio data, except for web clients that used the browser's software mute feature.
Zoom, likely the most popular video conferencing app worldwide, was found to actively track if the user is talking even while they were in mute mode.
Even for the apps that collect limited audio data when muted, the researchers found that it's possible to use that data to decipher what the user is doing 82% of the time, using a simple machine learning algorithm.
Thirdly, you can use your OS's audio control settings to mute your microphone's input channel so that any apps will receive zero volume audio.