[offbynull]

Not directly related to the article, but the other day I saw the "camera in use" indicator in the Android status bar while WhatsApp was open. The camera usage history showed it was being used by WhatsApp at the time (not another app), but I wasn't making use of any feature that required a camera at that time (browsing contacts).

I doubt it was nefarious. Anyone know why something like this would happen? Is there some internal calibration going on or maybe a bug? I disabled WhatsApp's camera permission immediately afterwards.

[otachack]

I don't use WhatsApp anymore but I do remember a nifty feature where you can swipe right from the contact list to the camera. What was interesting is you can gradually swipe and the camera seemed always on so you can see the preview viewfinder displaying live feed while swiping.

I imagine for that to work it needed my camera to always be permitted by WhatsApp, and now with Android's latest version where it shows what's using your live mic or camera, FB didn't bother updating the above feature.

Just my hypothesis!

[alfiedotwtf]

> I doubt it was nefarious

Given they're a Facebook company, I'm not sure why you'd doubt it was nefarious

[potatosaur]

Didn't instagram get caught keeping the camera open recently?

[capableweb]

Was just gonna mention something similar but on iOS and with the microphone, opened Whatsapp and the "Using microphone" thing started showing for about 5-6 seconds before disappearing. Turned off most permissions after that and will only enable when I know I need it for specific things.