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The Facebook for iOS app appears to be accessing the iPhone or iPad's camera in the background when the app is in use, according to multiple reports on Twitter.

facebookbug.jpg
The sliver of brown in this demo photo is the Facebook app accessing the camera behind the timeline.

When scrolling through the Facebook timeline, several users saw the camera activated in the background, as demonstrated in the tweets below.

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

Facebook app on iOS 13.2.2 opens my phone's rear camera when I open a profile photo swipe down to return (look at the little slit on the left of the video). Is this an app bug or an iOS bug?? @facebook @AppleSupport pic.twitter.com/WlhSXZulqx - Daryl Lasafin (@dzlasafin) November 10, 2019

One Facebook user found it through an interface bug that shows a small sliver of the display when looking at a photo, while another found it when rotating a device.

Both The Next Web and CNET were able to reproduce the issue and confirmed that the camera is activated in the background when using Facebook on iOS. The issue appears to impact iPhones running iOS 13, including the newest release version of iOS 13, iOS 13.2.2. Devices running iOS 12 do not appear to be impacted.

Facebook vice president of integrity Guy Rosen this morning said that it "sounds like a bug" and that Facebook is looking into it, but Facebook has not officially commented on the issue.

Thanks for flagging this. This sounds like a bug, we are looking into it. - Guy Rosen (@guyro) November 12, 2019

Security researcher Will Strafach told TechCrunch that it appears to be a "harmless but creepy looking bug."

For the Facebook app to access the camera in the background, camera and microphone access must be enabled in the Settings app. Those concerned about the bug can disable Facebook's access to these features on the iPhone and the iPad, or delete the Facebook app.

Article Link: Bug in Facebook App Accesses the Camera in the Background
 
We need more transparency and control over all the background processes running on our mobile devices and the ability to kill them. Windows has Task Manager, macOS has Activity Monitor, iOS has nothing and it's long overdue.
 
This is yet another reason why I don't run the actual FB app on my phone, and instead access their service through a web page link in Safari. Can't trust the buggers any farther than I could comfortably spit out a rat.
 
Even with all the privacy violations Facebook has made over the years, I doubt this is intentional. It looks more like someone tried to take a shortcut while creating a feature so the camera would open instantly without any software optimizations, similar to how Facebook was playing audio in the background to keep the app open a few years back. Definitely still creepy and they should have better software qc, but let's not jump to conclusions too quickly.
 
This shows you Facebook‘s software engineers are lackadaisical and nonchalant allowing something like this to slip by. I get it, mistakes happen, but Facebook has been on a downward trend for a while now with having privacy concerns violated. I’m proud to say I’ve never used Facebook and never will.
 
We need more transparency and control over what's happening on our mobile devices and the ability to kill background processes. We have nothing like Task Manager for Windows and Activity Monitor for macOS on iOS and it's long overdue.

How well do we know "permissions" works in iOS? Didn't I read an article a year or so ago about how they have access to GPS/location even with it being disabled in iOS?
 
A few nights ago, I noticed that if I had the Facebook app open, I couldn’t use the flashlight feature. [It would be unselectable in the Control Center.]

I took it to mean that the Facebook app was somehow accessing the camera when the app was open, so I decided to revoke the Facebook app’s access to my camera in Settings.

After doing that, I could use the flashlight feature even if the Facebook app was open.
 
While I hate Facebook’s treatment of user privacy as much as the next guy, seems to me like it’s just a layout bug, nothing nefarious, and not “in the background,” which implies that the app is accessing the camera when the app is not in use (which is not the issue demonstrated). In any case, I denied Facebook camera access from the start because I can’t think of any case where I’m going to rush to Facebook to take a photo when I could use the Camera app instead.
 
Of course it does. That disgusting company should have its apps taken off the App Store. Can’t believe people use Facebook, I have never used it even when I was in college never ever trusted it and now look - told you so 10 years ago!!! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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This shows you Facebook‘s software engineers are lackadaisical and nonchalant allowing something like this to slip by. I get it, mistakes happen, but Facebook has been on a downward trend for a while now with having privacy concerns violated. I’m proud to say I’ve never used Facebook and never will.

I bet your insta is fire though
 
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