Why you Need to Review who has Access to your Phone's Camera and Microphone

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My gadgets - computer, tablet and phone - all have washi tape that cover the cameras. Yes, including the front camera of my phone coz I don't take selfies anyway. 🙈😂  Why? Coz I've heard that with the sophisticated technology nowadays, someone could actually control your phone's camera or microphone and take data anytime.  And it doesn't help if you've seen an episode of Black Mirror. 😱🙈

Then last weekend, I read this article from The Guardian entitled "Are your phone camera and microphone spying on you?".   According to the article, if you have installed any app that allows you to do voice calls, video calls and send images, and gave that app permission to your camera and microphone, that app could technically do the following:

• Access both the front and the back camera.
• Record you at any time the app is in the foreground.
• Take pictures and videos without telling you.
• Upload the pictures and videos without telling you.
• Upload the pictures/videos it takes immediately.
• Run real-time face recognition to detect facial features or expressions.
• Livestream the camera on to the internet.
• Detect if the user is on their phone alone, or watching together with a second person.
• Upload random frames of the video stream to your web service and run a proper face recognition software which can find existing photos of you on the internet and create a 3D model based on your face.

Scary, right? 

The article also goes on to cite real-life cases on how other parties could collect data from you including the government and hackers.

What could you do?  Make sure to only download apps from reputable developers.  But even if they are from reputable companies, you don't have to give the apps permission to your camera or microphone the entire time if you only use the app for other purposes e.g. just reading content or sending text messages.  Then, in the few times when you need to use the app/s for voice or video chats, or to send images, you can temporarily give access to the specific app to your camera or microphone.   It's a bit of a hassle but it may be all worth it for privacy and peace of mind.