Amaya Toman Web designer Joshua Maddux has uncovered an interesting bug in the Facebook iOS app that activates the iPhone's rear camera while browsing the News Feed. This was not an isolated coincidence - the same phenomenon was observed by Maddux in five different devices. The error does not appear to occur on Android mobile devices.
Maddux posted a video of the said error on his twitter account – we can observe on it how, when scrolling through the news channel, a shot taken by the iPhone's rear camera appears on the left side of the display. According to Maddux, this is a bug in the Facebook iOS app. "When the app is running, it is actively using the camera," Maddux writes in his tweet.
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
The occurrence of the error was also confirmed by the editors of The Next Web server. "While iPhones with iOS 13.2.2 have the camera actively working in the background, it appears that the issue is not specific to iOS 13.1.3," states the website. The activation of the rear camera while running Facebook was also confirmed by one of the commenters who reported the occurrence of the error on his iPhone 7 Plus with iOS 12.4.1.
Rather than an intention, in this case it will be a bug associated with a gesture designed to access Stories. But in any case, this is a serious failure in the field of security. Users who didn't allow the Facebook app to access their iPhone's camera didn't experience the bug. But the vast majority of people allow Facebook access to their camera and photo gallery for understandable reasons.
Until Facebook can fix the problem, users are advised to temporarily block the app's access to the v camera Settings -> Privacy -> Camera, and repeat the same procedure for the microphone as well. The second option is to use Facebook in the web version in Safari, or to temporarily forgive its use on the iPhone.
Source: 9to5Mac
Fortunately, I don't have any such cell phones.
Luckily I don't have any Facebook app :)