“Google engineer Felix Krause has detailed an alarming privacy setting in Apple’s iOS that enables iPhone apps with camera permission to surreptitiously take photos and videos of you – without your knowledge,” Mix reports for TNW.
“The researcher notes that granting camera permission will enable apps to access both the front and the back camera of your device, photograph and record you at any time the app is in the foreground, upload this content immediately, and run real-time face detection to read your facial expressions,” Mix reports. “All of this without any notice or indication that your iPhone is snapping images of your face. No sound, no light, no LEDs.”
“Krause says there is little you can do to prevent this; though there are a few options, none of them would make for a particularly smooth and streamlined user experience. One possibility is to equip your camera with covers. You can find numerous such accessories on Amazon,” Mix reports. “The Googler has since disclosed this complication to Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Granting permission to use your camera is just that. The camera is either enabled or not. When it’s enabled, it can be pointed at anything. Perhaps Apple should add camera permissions that expire every so often?
As usual, the only foolproof way to prevent recording is with physical camera covers.
We’ve been taping our Mac cameras for several years. Call us paranoid, but first see the related articles below. That’s why we use camJAMR iSight camera covers on our iMacs and MacBook Airs. They’re black, so they work perfectly with our iMacs and they’re removable/reusable. We’ve stuck and unstuck them hundreds of times. We just leave them on and peel them aside when we want to use the iSight camera.
SEE ALSO:
How to completely disable your Mac’s FaceTime camera – March 1, 2017
How to keep your Mac’s camera from spying on you, no tape required – December 8, 2016
Mark Zuckerberg covers his MacBook’s camera and microphone with tape – June 22, 2016
How to disable the iSight camera on your Mac – February 19, 2015
Orwellian: UK government, with aid from US NSA, intercepted webcam images from millions of users – February 27, 2014
Sextortion warning: It’s masking tape time for webcams – June 28, 2013
Research shows how Mac webcams can spy on their users without warning light – December 18, 2013
Ex-official: FBI can secretly activate an individual’s webcam without indicator light – December 9, 2013
Lower Merion report: MacBook webcams snapped 56,000 clandestine images of high schoolers – April 20, 2010