In today's world, basically any device that allows you to both listen as well as talk to the other party is a device that is capable, perhaps with physical modification, perhaps with software modification, perhaps with some surreptitious tweaking, or perhaps with the right overrides against your privacy protections, to turn into a device that will listen to your voice, without notification or knowledge to you.
While, a car device, such as OnStar has its practicalities and worth, the power, capability and potential intrusiveness of this device is truly noteworthy. Not only does OnStar provide remote access to your vehicle, which will allow it to be located via GPS, unlocked, locked, to have its lights flash on or off, or to cut off the flow of gasoline to the car's engine, OnStar communications system is a two-way system, in which you can not only hear OnStar but that OnStar has the capability to listen in on you through the microphone installed as part of OnStar, and as a device meant to be used for customer communication with OnStar. Of course, no doubt, there are plenty of legal terms and conditions which prevent OnStar from doing any of this snooping stuff, but the problem is, not that the consumer doesn't have protections and rights, but that these protections and rights can, no doubt, under exigent conditions, be overridden by specific Government agencies, and/or these agencies on their own with surreptitious entry and authority, simply will assert their ability to access this information.
So too, as smart phones, those ubiquitous little mini-computers which are getting smarter and smarter by the day, have the capacity to turn into their own listening device, against you, and in fact, any device such as a smart TV, or an Xbox, or the Amazon Fire TV device, and so forth, which is voice activated, signifying that the device controlled is able to hear, understand, and then obey your voice, can, in all probability, be turned into a device which simply listens to you or those within your space, 24/7, akin to an obedient servant, only this particular servant doesn't ultimately serve exclusively you.
Today's technology is a two-edge sword, while on the one hand, it gives us all sorts of wonderful things, conveniences, and so forth, all controlled by our voice or the pushing of a button, it can at the same time, be turned against us, and unfortunately, there are many people working for Government agencies that will actively, relentlessly, and unabatedly stop at nothing to provide such a capability to the Government, because they truly believed thatthese tools are necessitated in order to stop enemies of the State, never once recognizing or preferring not to acknowledge that when the State is above the law, or bends the law for its purposes, it ceases to be a force of liberty, but instead becomes a weapon of tyranny.
It's a sad, sad day, when the State sees its ability to monitor every conversation and to monitor every movement of its citizens, as being the epitome of the definition of Government provided citizen safety and security. America has degenerated into a country divided between two factions, the Watchers and the Watched, with its citizenry having no power to monitor the Watchers, while putting their liberty, their happiness, and their lives into the hands of anonymous intrusive bureaucrats.