Post updated July 27th, 2020 at 04:17 pm
As part of Apple iOS 14’s security features, the system will notify users if a device’s camera is being accessed by an application. To the surprise of several users who have installed the new OS on their iPhones, photo sharing app Instagram is found to be accessing their cameras even without them using it.
However, this supposed breach in privacy is actually a bug, according to Instagram themselves when approached by The Verge. A company spokesperson told the site that the issue may have been caused by the app’s Create Mode, which is accessible from the Instagram camera. The bug is currently being looked into, they added.
Casually browsing Instagram when suddenly the new iOS 14 camera/microphone indicator comes on. Then control panel ratted out the app behind it. This is going to change things. #iOS14 pic.twitter.com/EnTIRsqq3R
— KevDoy (@KevDoy) July 17, 2020
“We only access your camera when you tell us to — for example, when you swipe from Feed to Camera. We found and are fixing a bug in iOS 14 Beta that mistakenly indicates that some people are using the camera when they aren’t,” they said. “We do not access your camera in those instances, and no content is recorded.”
Besides alerting users of unauthorised access to certain device functions such as cameras, iOS 14 would also notify them of app behaviours such as clipboard copying. Such security measures have been introduced in light of recent privacy concerns surrounding certain applications such as TikTok and Zoom.
(Source: The Verge)
