Facebook has issued a statement, categorically denying rumors that it listens to its users' conversations using their phone's mic in order to display ads or modify News Feed preferences.

In its statement, the social network also clarified that it only accesses the mic when the app is given an explicit permission for this purpose by the user.

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The issue came into light when Kelli Burns, a mass communications professor at the University of South California told The Independent that she suspects Facebook is eavesdropping on her private conversations. She also claimed that Facebook adjusted advertisements according to the topics she discussed on the phone.

Facebook responded by saying, "Businesses are able to serve relevant ads based on people's interests and other demographic information, but not through audio collection." It also said that news feed stories are also not tailored using microphone audio. The company added that it does not store the raw data derived from the conversations. The mic feature was introduced in 2014.

The social media giant introduced the mic feature in 2014 and uses the same for several other purposes. It added, "We use your microphone to identify the things you're listening to or watching, based on the music and TV matches we're able to identify."

Facebook also allows users to disable the microphone feature from the app's settings. Android users can turn it off by going to the "Privacy and Safety" option in Settings and toggling off Facebook's access under the app permissions tab while iOS device users can switch off the "microphone" option under Facebook from the Settings panel.

While the issue has been sorted out for the time being, such stories are becoming more and more common.

TagsFacebook, Facebook eavesdropping, Facebook mic, Facebook microphone, Facebook Privacy