Well, let's summarise: there's an Internet-of-Things device that is transmitting audio you cannot hear for the purpose of communicating to your phone in a manner you aren't aware of. Your phone listens for this type of audio because you installed an app that included an undeclared software library that performs this task.
This app sends information to some corporate server somewhere via the internet connection you paid for as part of your mobile phone plan. You don't know what this information is but according to vendors of this technology it will consist of personally identifying information.
The reasons why this information is wanted can be considered in the context of words such as disruptive, marketing and sharing economy. Apparently we want to be offered more personalised goods and services. And apparently I have volunteered my personal information for this brave new world.
But if you don't, then good luck disabling the microphone(s) on your smart-phone, or decompiling any of the apps you have installed on your smart-phone, or avoiding any public spaces thought of as being part of a smart-city, or staying away from your smart-home…
Or we could just offer a parody of the much ridiculed anti–video piracy campaign —
You wouldn’t dox a car,
You wouldn’t dox a handbag,
You wouldn’t dox a television,
You wouldn’t dox a movie,
Secretly connecting to my phone to dox me,
should be against the law,
PRIVACY. IT’S NOT A CRIME
Read the Honours research thesis here.
If you need to find out more,
then I don't know, try @this.