News

For some reason, Facebook is accessing your iPhone’s camera while you browse

Why do I still use the platform?

by
Josiah Motley
November 12, 2019

Image: KnowTechie

UPDATE: According to Guy Rosen, VP of Integrity (whatever that is) responded to inquiries on Twitter, “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.”

We’ll continue to update accordingly.

If you needed to add yet another reason to delete Facebook (I don’t, yet here I am, still on the platform), then maybe this latest bug? feature? will be the tipping point.

Discovered by Joshua Maddux on Twitter, Facebook is apparently opening your iPhone’s camera while you browse and look at pictures.

Facebook is accessing your camera while you browse the iOS app

As Maddux shows in the video below, when looking around on Facebook, if you pull an image down, you can see a small sliver on the left side of your screen where Facebook is directly accessing your rear camera.

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

According to him, he’s tried it on five iPhones all running the latest version of iOS (13.2.2) and they all displayed the same issue. He notes on iOS 12 the issue is not present. I also tried to replicate this on iOS 13.1.3 and was unable to get it to work.

TheNextWeb has also confirmed the issue on iOS 13.2.2, noting, “The findings are consistent with our own attempts.” It also seems that you have had to give Facebook access to your camera for the bug to activate – which, I guess, is a bit of a comfort.

We have also tried to replicate the issue on an iPhone XS Max and could never get the camera to show on the left side of the screen.

Others have replicated the feature, and even triggered it in other ways

https://twitter.com/neo_qa/status/1190639141979140097

https://twitter.com/alfredwkng/status/1194287496781336577

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

Is this a bug from the latest version of iOS or is this something on Facebook’s end? With Facebook constantly in the news for data and other issues, I’m going with Facebook.

What do you think? Have you been able to replicate the issue? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.