Beware users, Facebook may be using your rear camera without informing you. This problem is occurring in the iOS version of the app, while the users are scrolling their feeds. The glitch may be recording and capturing all your details through your rear camera.
The incident has come to light since Joshua Maddux, a regular user tweeted about it. In the video he shared, the camera is visibly working while he’s scrolling his feed. Soon after his post, the app spotted the issue and started working on the App Store version.
The issue is with iOS 13.2.2
Found a @facebook #security & #privacy issue. When the app is open it actively uses the camera. I found a bug in the app that lets you see the camera open behind your feed. Note that I had the camera pointed at the carpet. pic.twitter.com/B8b9oE1nbl
— Joshua Maddux (@JoshuaMaddux) November 10, 2019
Maddux said that he found the issue with 5 phones of this iOS version. But when he used the app in an iOS 12 phone, the glitch was missing. He said, “I will note that iPhones running iOS 12 don’t show the camera (not to say that it’s not being used).”
You can see a tiny silver icon on the side that has the camera feed when you open an image and swipe down. When Maddux spotted this thing, he instantly decided to aware the public about the privacy violation.
Is it just a bug?
Is it just a bug?
It was cleared by the company that it was a bug and is now fixing it. This issue is taking place only if you grant access to the camera. If you don’t grant any, then the app may try but iOS will block it.
Facebook is smart about this by now as it is not a new thing for the company. Such conspiracies are common for Zuckerberg’s oldest business.
With Facebook having many issues regarding user’s privacy, this adds a new point of concern. By far, it’s clear that any other app on an iPhone has the power to record secretly. 2 years back, a regular user named Felix Krause had raised his concern towards the issue.
Most importantly, have they captured anything?
Most importantly, have they captured anything?
The Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen tweeted, “We recently discovered our iOS app incorrectly launched in landscape. In fixing that last week in v246 we inadvertently introduced a bug where the app partially navigates to the camera screen when a photo is tapped,”
He also clarified that they have no evidence of photos/videos uploaded due to this. The best way to avoid such happenings is to turn off the access for the best amount of privacy. And best of all, the most important thing is to stay aware as your entire surroundings may be in difficulty.
