Earlier this week, a bug was discovered on Facetime leaving people horrified and paranoid about their privacy and security. The bug made it possible to eavesdrop on recipients without their consent. Technically, FaceTime users had access to call someone and listen through the recipient microphone while the call was ringing or left unanswered.
How the Bug was discovered.
The flaw was first discovered by a 14-year-old teenager on January 19, just 10 days before the Data Privacy Day. Grant Thompson, the 14-year-old teenager, was just playing video games with his friends when he made the shocking discovery. Thompson discovered the security flaw when he called his friend via facetime video call and didn’t pick up. He immediately noticed he could hear everything coming through his friend’s iPhone despite the call was left unanswered. “We tested a few more times and found out we could get people to force answer FaceTime calls,” said Thomson to CNN business.
Thomson’s mother tried to reach Apple to warn them about the security flaw but took them a while until they responded. On the 28th of January, the day of Data Privacy Day, Apple finally acknowledged the issue and said it will be fixed later this week. In the meantime, they disabled the group video call for a while and until today the glitch is not yet fixed.
A Houston lawyer also took action and sued Apple earlier this week claiming that the bug allowed someone to spy on his conversation with his client. The lawyer claimed that FaceTime was the reason for exposing his most intimate conversations with his client without taking consent.
How to Turn Off FaceTime
If you’re still paranoid about your online security and privacy, the least you could do now is to turn off FaceTime. Here’s how you could do it.
In case you’re using FaceTime on your Iphone or Ipad follow the steps below.
- Go to settings
- Scroll down to Facetime
- Switch off Facetime button
In case you’re using FaceTime on your Mac
- Open FaceTime
- Go to the menu and click on FaceTime
- Click on the Preferences
- Uncheck Enable this account
Your Right for Privacy
Digital privacy is a human right and every individual has the right to keep their communication private. Unfortunately, Apple’s FaceTime failed to keep its users’ data secure. Privacy and security should always remain a top priority for all companies. The fact that Apple neglected the issue for so long indicates how unconcerned they are towards their users’ privacy. Here with Pinngle messaging app, our top priority is to protect our users’ data thus, keeping them safe and secure. We do this by using securely encrypted communication methods to ensure that no calls and messages will ever be leaked or eavesdropped.
You can easily download Pinngle now from Google play or download Pinngle from AppStore.
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