A Facebook Bug Secretly Turns Your iPhone Camera On

Some iPhone users have discovered a new bug in Facebook‘s iOS app which switches on an iPhone’s camera without permission. The bug was first discovered on November 2 by Twitter user @neo_qa, and subsequently went viral when another user Joshua Maddox tweeted about the issue. Both users posted video evidence of the bug.

According to the footage, it appears that the bug will activate the camera once a Facebook user taps into a photo or video in fullscreen mode within the iOS app. When you try to close the photo or video, instead of going back to the app, the screen changes to an open camera, sometimes hiding behind the Facebook interface as well.

Since the discovery of the bug, Facebook’s VP of Integrity Guy Rosen has addressed the issue and said that the team is now working on fixing it, with an update to the App Store coming soon. Facebook also issued the following statement to Mashable:

“We recently discovered that version 244 of the Facebook iOS app would incorrectly launch in landscape mode. In fixing that issue last week in v246 (launched on November 8th) we inadvertently introduced a bug that caused the app to partially navigate to the camera screen adjacent to News Feed when users tapped on photos. We have seen no evidence of photos or videos being uploaded due to this bug. We’re submitting the fix for this to Apple today.”

Elsewhere in tech, Instagram is now testing a music feature for its Stories similar to TikTok.

Today, while watching a video on @facebook, I rotated to landscape and could see the Facebook/Instagram Story UI for a split second. When rotating back to portrait, the Story camera/UI opened entirely. A little worrying… pic.twitter.com/7lVHHGedGf

— Neo QA (@neo_qa) November 2, 2019

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

We’re submitting a fix for this to the App Store today.

— Guy Rosen (@guyro) November 12, 2019