Instagram caught accessing camera unnecessarily on iPhone
What's the story
Despite being in beta, Apple's latest iPhone operating system, the iOS 14, is doing wonders at bringing sneaky app behaviors into the limelight.
Just a few weeks back, the platform revealed Reddit and LinkedIn's overaggressive clipboard snooping practices, and now, in another unexpected case, it has caught Instagram's absolutely unnecessary camera access.
Here is more about it.
Feature
iOS 14's camera indicator and its working
As many already know, the iOS 14 comes with a feature that shows orange and green dots on the status bar to highlight when an app is using the mic (orange) or the camera (green) of your iPhone.
The capability comes handy and is directly aimed at notifying about apps gaining unauthorized access to audio or visual data.
Revelation
Weirdly, the indicator showed up while using Instagram
Even though the indicator makes a small part of iOS, it has created some serious problems for Instagram">Instagram.
As multiple testers noted, the green "camera on" dot appeared constantly for the photo-sharing service, even when all they did was browsing their feed.
This implied that, somehow, the Facebook-owned app is accessing the iPhone camera even when it is not required to do so.
Twitter Post
Here's what one beta tester tweeted
Casually browsing Instagram when suddenly the new iOS 14 camera/microphone indicator comes on. Then control panel ratted out the app behind it. This is going to change things. #iOS14 pic.twitter.com/EnTIRsqq3R
— KevDoy (@KevDoy) July 17, 2020
Response
Instagram says it is a bug, no content is recorded
As the issue surfaced, Instagram issued a statement saying that the problem stems from a bug that is being fixed.
"We found and are fixing a bug in iOS 14 Beta that mistakenly indicates that some people are using the camera when they aren't," a company's spokesperson told The Verge. "We do not access your camera in those instances, and no content is recorded."
Change
Note: Indicator will show only while using Instagram's camera features
Once the issue is patched, the iOS camera indicator will appear for Instagram but only when you will swipe into the app's camera from Feed or launch it manually to use its Create mode.
"We only access your camera when you tell us to — for example, when you swipe from Feed to Camera," the company's spokesperson added.