Facebook admits iOS 'bug' that enabled its app to access iPhone cameras

It was a complete mistake, honest, swears Facebook

The Facebook app on iPhone and iPad has been accessing cameras in the background, but the company insists it was a mistake, rather than a feature.

The bug was uncovered by users, who reported on Twitter, the seemingly unusual behaviour in the iOS app. In particular, Joshua Maddux noticed that his iPhone camera appeared to be working while he scrolled through his Facebook news feed.

Maddux found that the issue seems to affect iPhones running the latest version of iOS, 13.2.2, released last week, but not iOS 12. This has been confirmed by other reports.

Facebook's vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, tweeted that the whole thing "sounds like a bug" and added that the company would look into it.

The bug manifested itself as a sliver of the camera interface shown on the edge of the phone's display when using the parts of the Facebook iOS app.

It appears to be down to how the Facebook app handles access to iPhone and iPad cameras in the iOS 13. To contain the bug for the time being, iPhone and iPad users can remove the Facebook app's camera access in the device settings or, better still, uninstall the app entirely.