I never understood this. They indicate when your mic, location and even mobile hotspot is on, but there is no indication of whether your camera is on. Apps with permission to use the camera can use it without you knowing!
I remember reading that the Japanese iOS makes a loud shutter noise when you take a picture that can’t be silenced.<p>It’s actually apparently a Japanese law.<p><a href="https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-turn-the-camera-shutter-sound-off-on-a-Japanese-iPhone" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-turn-the-camera-shutter-sound...</a>
I just want a phone that has a manual physical toggle button that kills the power to the cameras if any apps need the camera they can just notify me to please toggle that switch. One of the nightly build that I put on my note 8 turns on the edge screen notification flash when the cameras are on every once in awhile I see that thing on no reason.
I’ve wondered this too. But maybe ux is more important in this case than privacy. There’s a red or blue bar that shows up when mic or location or hotspot is on. I’d hate to see that when my full screen camera app opens. But I do value privacy. So another solution would be what Mac has implemented. A led shows up whenever the camera is on. But I’ve seen reports and articles where it’s possible to fire the Mac camera and shut it off quickly before the LED has time to kick on. (I cover my Mac camera with a post-it).<p>I don’t know what the solution could be. Maybe a vibration of a specific kind?<p>I think Apple should address this. It’s a good next step in terms of privacy focused Apple and it’s something that will be rewarding for the user to see that whenever the camera opens, something happens. Good PR points for Apple. A win for the user.
Disclosure of bias: I work for Microsoft. I don't speak for my employer.<p>Windows Phone 7's chassis specification mandated that manufacturers include a hardwired LED that lit up when the front-facing camera is active. But Android did not mandate this (or much of anything), and so the Qualcomm Reference Device (QRD) didn't implement it. The QRD is important, because many low-end manufacturers bootstrap their product design with a QRD and make the minimum number of changes to arrive at a viable product. But manufacturers needed to do extra engineering work and add to the BOM to make a Windows version of their cheap Android products.<p>It eventually became clear that consumers weren't willing to pay any premium for Windows Phone's higher standard for privacy. (I'm not claiming this was the <i>only</i> cause of WP's failure in the market -- just one small contributing factor.) So we intentionally pared down later versions of the chassis specification to minimize the differences between it and the QRD, including removing this privacy LED requirement. In theory, this would have allowed manufacturers to churn out cheap Windows Phones as easily as they were churning out cheap Android Phones.<p>Of course in hindsight, that was all too little, too late. Android won the cheap phone market for a huge number of reasons, one tiny factor of which is that it didn't require a privacy LED. The moral I took away? If your products cost more because they're safer, your marketing needs to ensure you get credit for that. Safety isn't obvious to someone glancing at your product; you need to spell all it out for the consumer. And if you can't find a way to articulate it, then reconsider whether you <i>really</i> need that safety feature.
The indicator indicates background activities. Eg. If you are using Google maps for navigation, the bar will show when you switch away from Google maps. But when you switch back, now it's happening in the foreground and the indicator disappears.<p>Camera can only be accessed by the foreground app.
This may be controversial, but given the potential abuse I think there should be a mandatory blinking orange LED next to every camera (both front and back).<p>If you make sure that all smartphone models use the same blinking frequency (perhaps 3Hz) and LED color then people would quickly learn what it means.
This likely hasn't been made clear to them with a terrifying example yet.<p>Guessing they currently don't have a hardware LED because it might freak people out how much the camera is actually on. Likely no onscreen indicator for the same reason.
If they were going to make this change, they'd have to weigh the benefits of making this change against spooking users who have no idea why their bank app is using their front facing camera.
Japan mandates a shutter sound due to issues with involuntary pornography: <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/30/japans-noisy-iphone-problem/" rel="nofollow">https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/30/japans-noisy-iphone-prob...</a><p>I'm surprised not even a simple LED is present though. IIRC Macbooks LEDs are wired such that you can't use them without the current flowing through the LED
I hadn't considered this. I'm going to disable all camera permissions. I'll be less lazy in the future (e.g. with WhatsApp, instead of taking a photo in app, I'll use the Camera app then switch back)
<a href="https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcapturesession/interruptionreason/videodevicenotavailableinbackground" rel="nofollow">https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcap...</a><p>The camera cannot be accessed without displaying it on the screen.
It’s not the Apple way to make concessions to security through hardware means. The hardware must remain a perfect uninterrupted glass slab, and any protections would likely be made in software.<p>Edit: downvoter is welcome to point me to any model of Apple hardware that has a hardware radio switch or a hardware cover for the camera lens? The secure enclave is maybe the one exception to the above rule, but is highly software-supported.