Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says people should find a way to get off Facebook

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says people should get off Facebook if they value their privacy.

The company is invading people's privacy and the only way to get away from it is to leave, he suggested.

What's more, people's phones could be listening to them and there is "almost no way to stop it", said the man who founded Apple alongside Steve Jobs.

Mr Wozniak left Facebook last year, deleting his public account in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data abuse scandal. He urged anyone else who is concerned about their privacy to do the same.

“There are many different kinds of people, and some of the benefits of Facebook are worth the loss of privacy,” Wozniak told TMZ, which had interviewed him as he passed through an airport in Washington DC. “But to many like myself, my recommendation is – to most people – you should figure out a way to get off Facebook.”

He made reference to the smart speakers and other listening devices that are now commonly available, and which have prompted a variety of privacy concerns.

“I mean, they can measure your heartbeat with lasers now, they can listen to you with a lot of devices. Who knows if my cellphone’s listening right now? Alexa has already been in the news a lot," he said.

“So I worry because you’re having conversations that you think are private... You’re saying words that really shouldn’t be listened to, because you don’t expect it. But there’s almost no way to stop it."

He went on to suggest that social media companies should offer people the ability to pay if they want to keep their data private, rather than having it used to sell advertising.

“People think they have a level of privacy they don’t," he said. "Why don’t they give me a choice? Let me pay a certain amount, and you’ll keep my data more secure and private then everybody else handing it to advertisers.”