How your phone's gyroscope can reveal your PIN and capture your conversations

You probably know that your phone knows a lot about you. But there is a small sensor between the subtleties of connectors and chips that make up the device capable of measuring something you've never thought about: angular velocity.

In other words, how do you hold the cell phone? if it is vertical, horizontal or inclined

This measurement is then transformed into an electrical signal that the device processes immediately.

Not only explains how you move it quickly or slowly between your hands, but it can also expose your PIN or the conversations you have.

We tell you how. "Most smartphones tablets and other portable devices are equipped with a multitude of sensors – gyroscopes, accelerometers – that allow us to interact with the real world," he said. declared to the BBC. Maryam Mehrnezhad, Faculty of Computer Science, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom.

Many specialists call them "silent sensors" . In total, they identified more than 25.

• 5 personal data that you leave on your mobile phone and you may never have noticed
• How the way you pick up the phone can you make vulnerable to pirates

The sensor that detects angular velocity is the gyroscope which has become – with the accelerometer, which rotates the screen – one of the parts mistresses of smartphones that are manufactured today, and which is also fundamental in other devices, such as smart watches.

Almost all mobile phones made in the last two or three years have a gyroscope.

For example, all the iPhones in the Model 5 include it, as well as a large part of the Android made three years ago: Google Nexus (from 4 to 6), Samsung Galaxy (from S3 and Note 4), Sony Xperia (from T and Z), are a few of them.

With the gyroscope, you can watch 360 videos, play Pokémon Go or use virtual reality apps. It also helps your phone "understand" the gestures and movements you make on the screen or the buttons you activate.

The problem is that applications can use the data provided by the gyroscope without even asking permission or providing you with all

One of them is Tinder l 39; application of most used citations around the world.

The platform collects data from both the accelerometer and the gyroscope, but does not explain exactly why it uses them.

"We collect information you use to access our services, including that of software – as the IP address – your type of wireless connection or sensors as the accelerometer, the gyroscope and the compbad ", reads on his website.