Bug in Facebook App Accesses the Camera in the Background
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.
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.
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.
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.
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