While Facebook was already in a ton of pressure while trying to deal with all the scandals and public relations mistakes, the last thing the social media giant needed was a bug discovery (iOS 13.2.2 Facebook Camera Bug) that calls out the company about its commitment to users privacy.
However, that’s exactly what happened just a few days ago. No more, no less.
Apparently, an annoying iOS 13.2.2 Facebook Camera Bug was discovered. The glitch in question activates a user’s iPhone camera in the App’s background while they browse through Facebook. This all happens in a super-sneaky way, without users previously agreeing to their smartphone’s operative system giving the App permission to access their iPhone’s camera.
The bug was pointed out by designer Joshua Maddux who discovered that the iOS camera is sometimes activated by the iPhone’s OS while users innocently and happily browse through their news feed.
Maddux also posted a Tweet where he provided the Facebook community with some additional information, informing everyone that he’s been able to replicate the bug with 5 different iPhone models all running the latest iOS version (which was iOS 13.2.2 when the incident occurred).
However, the issue doesn’t appear to arise on iPhones running variants of iOS 12. You can check Maddux’s Tweet about the bug, which is embedded 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
As soon as Maddux’s tweet start going viral, The Next Web decided to try and replicate the issue, which they successfully did. Thanks to their efforts, they were able to determine that the issue was directly related with the recent iOS 13.2.2 update, which they shared their thoughts about, saying:
“The findings are consistent with our own attempts. While iPhones running iOS 13.2.2 indeed show the camera actively working in the background, the issue doesn’t appear to affect iOS 13.1.3. We further noticed the issue only occurs if you have given the Facebook app access to your camera. If not, it appears the Facebook app tries to access it, but iOS blocks the attempt.”
Keep in mind that, so far, the issue only affected iPhone users that are running the latest iOS version (iOS 13.2.2), so Android devices shouldn’t have any problems, but time will tell.
As stated before, the bug in question only seems to occur when users grant their iOS Facebook App permission to access the iPhone’s camera.
So, if you do own an iPhone that’s running the latest iOS version (iOS 13.2.2) you might want to consider turning off the camera access until this bug gets patched. To fix this recent iOS 13.2.2 Facebook Camera bug, all you have to do to deny the iOS Facebook App permission to your iPhone’s Camera is: go to Settings > Privacy > Camera, and then just deny access.
