Facebook bug secretly activates your iPhone camera as you scroll the News Feed
Nov 13, 2019
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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iPhone users have noticed a pretty worrying and creepy bug while using Facebook on their phones. It seems that the app was accessing the camera while they were watching videos or looking at photos on their News Feed. A number of users noticed a glitch and then discovered that their camera had been running in the background without their knowledge.
Some users spotted the bug when looking at videos in full screen, and then returning them back to normal. This would make Facebook’s layout get slightly shifted to the right. In the open space on the left, they were able to see that their camera was running. Others would notice it when rotating the video to landscape and then back to portrait. They turned to Twitter to share their concerns, and you can see in their videos what the glitch looks like:
Facebook app on iOS 13.2.2 opens my phone’s rear camera when I open a profile photo swipe down to return (look at the little slit on the left of the video). Is this an app bug or an iOS bug?? @facebook @AppleSupport pic.twitter.com/WlhSXZulqx
— Daryl Lasafin (@dzlasafin) November 10, 2019
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
Today, while watching a video on @facebook, I rotated to landscape and could see the Facebook/Instagram Story UI for a split second. When rotating back to portrait, the Story camera/UI opened entirely. A little worrying… pic.twitter.com/7lVHHGedGf
— Neo QA (@neo_qa) November 2, 2019
Facebook has acknowledged the issue and noted that it was caused by a bug. Guy Rosen of Facebook writes that the company recently discovered that the 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 added that there is no evidence that any photos or videos were uploaded due to the glitch.
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. We have no evidence of photos/videos uploaded due to this.
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) November 12, 2019
In another tweet, Rosen added that fix is on the way.
Wanted to let you know that we’ve shipped the fix to App Store and are waiting for it to be approved. Team is still digging into details including about the state of the camera after the bug is first triggered (which relates to your Q), expect to be able to update you later today
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) November 12, 2019
Facebook (and Instagram) haven’t really been known for keeping their users’ data safe. There have been some major security bugs and a lot of controversy over Facebook’s data protection. Or better to say, lack of it. Many people feel like they’re being listened to, considering that Facebook and Instagram ads are often tailored by their conversations. So naturally, a bug that makes your camera run in the background seems pretty disturbing.
What do you think? Is this really just a bug, or there’s more to it?
[via Engadget, CNET; image credits: SofieZborilova on Pixabay (modified)]
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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30 responses to “Facebook bug secretly activates your iPhone camera as you scroll the News Feed”
“Some users spotted the bug”
Bug… yeah right :D
Use browser insted
Duh
Well it’s only going to see either one of two things, my face or the ground ?
In my case, it would probably be the ceiling because I usually scroll my feed in bed :D
I didn’t have that problem, but wait, I deleted that junk from my phone years ago.
I’ve noticed it on my phone. When I click on a picture to view and then click on it the second time so that all that is viewable is the picture (no “Like, Comment, Share”) and then close the picture to return to my feed the screen shifts about 1/4 inch and the entire left side of my screen is viewing through my camera.
“bug” un huh…. riiiiight
2016: https://people.csail.mit.edu/khosla/papers/cvpr2016_Khosla.pdf
“[…] We believe that we can put the power of eye tracking in everyone’s palm by building eye tracking software that works on commodity hardware such as mobile phones and tablets, without the need for additional sensors or devices. […] Our model achieves a prediction error of 1.71cm and 2.53cm without calibration on mobile phones and tablets respectively. With calibration, this is reduced to 1.34cm and 2.12cm. […]”
Wonder how many people it’s photographed on the toilet?
At least it’s not smell-o-vision
W Douglas LeBlanc
“Bug”
“Bug”
that is no bug.. that is FB spying
Is it a bug, really? ?
CREEPY for sure!
In iOS, there’s an easy switch to deny the Facebook app access to the camera. On Android, I don’t know.
It’s similar on Android.
Mines been doing it for a few days now
Like someone else mentioned, in iOS the moment you deny the Facebook app access to your camera it disappears. That’s no bug. WTF!!
cover the camera, i never use the front one so it is covered
Cue FB’s weak non apology. They did it on purpose and hoped no one would notice.
“bug”
A bug?? Lol, it was most likely done on purpose. What else is done by FB that we don’t know?
Heehee
Been over a month since I removed FB from the phone. Would rather look around more often.
“bug” ;)
Nothing for me to be concerned with.
1. Facebook banned me years ago.
2. No smart phone, can’t afford one. Just have cheap $85 a year Walmart Tracfone with no camera.
3.No camera in desktop
4.Laptop has black gaffer’s tape over the camera.
My desktop keeps waking up from sleep. Sometimes there is a screen on the monitor that says the app can’t find the camera. Other times the computer was put to sleep and I find it running like mad with heat coming out of the case like a mini blow dryer. I shut off the internet when I put it to sleep now. But it still may wake up once in a while for no reason. Who knows what demon takes over the computer.
A few years ago they would approach home computer uses to ask if they could use their computers to help crunch data when the person was not using it. This reminds me of that. Although in this day and age you would think they don’t need an army of home computers to crunch data.