Your iPhone has a serious privacy concern that allows iOS app developers to take your photographs and record your live video using both front and back camera—all without any notification or your consent.
This alarming privacy concern in Apple's mobile operating system was highlighted by an Austrian developer and Google engineer, Felix Krause, who detailed the issue in his blog post published Wednesday.
Krause explained that that granting camera permission could enable iOS app developers 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 the recorded and captured content immediately.
- run real-time face detection to read your facial expressions
All of this without warning or alerting you.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
Apple currently does not have a way to grant temporary permissions to access the camera, allowing apps to take a picture during a limited period of time, and then revokes it after that.
So until they find a fix for this, CyberSec Industries recommends to revoke camera access to apps you don't use the camera function for. Below are the instructions:
- On your iPhone or iPad open Settings app.
- From the Settings menu tap on ‘Privacy‘ option.
- On the Privacy menu find the Camera option and tap on it.
- Here you will find a list of apps that already have access to your device’s camera. To revoke camera access simply turn off the toggle next to the app.
That’s it. By turning off the toggle you have stopped that app from access your device’s camera. Next time you want to use Camera in the app you can return to the Privacy menu and re-enable the toggle.
