iPhone users are finding that their cameras are being turned on by using the Facebook app
Concerned iPhone users brought to light a bug that activates their device’s camera when using the Facebook app.
It was noted that the camera was activated behind Facebook’s app as users were watching videos or looking at photos on the social network.
Once users clicked on the video or photo in order to enlarge it to full screen, the act of returning the screen back to normal would trigger the bug. The result of the bug would be a shift to the right on the layout of Facebook’s mobile layout, as well as the phone’s camera activated in the background.
The earliest documented incident of this bug occurred on November 2nd, 2019.
Guy Rosen, Vice President of Integrity at Facebook, responded to concerned users via Twitter on November 12, 2019 stating, “Thanks for flagging this. This sounds like a bug, we are looking into it.”
Rosen tweeted later that same day to state that Facebook submitted a fix to the app store.
“We recently discovered our iOS app incorrectly launched in landscape,” Rosen said. “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.”
It was also confirmed by Rosen that Facebook didn’t capture any photos or videos while in the background, noting that the camera was in preview mode.
Only the latest iOS versions were affected, and Android devices were not affected at all.
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