Although any of the various Apple phones or products can be described as being immune to malware today, the reality is that iPhones and their iOS system have a clear advantage in terms of privacy and security. Although this additional privacy comes at the expense of some other features without a doubt, the reality is that it is superior today in many respects, from the most stringent App Store rules to the privacy features in the system.
In this topic, we will address one of the most important features previously introduced by iPhones within its iOS system, and this feature is to alert users to the fact that an application uses the phone's microphone or front camera. This feature may seem intuitive to a large extent because of its great usefulness, but it is still very recent in fact, it was introduced in the new iOS 14 system only, while it is completely absent from the Android system now.
How did the idea of privacy light start in iOS
In the past and before the new trend towards privacy, mobile applications had clearly greater powers than today, despite the fact that they do not need to tell the user about the things that you do, such as collecting personal information and accessing their files, names and geographic location even. But things changed a few years ago with the introduction of the Permissions feature. Users have direct and better access to what the apps do and what information they can collect.
Today, on almost any phone you use, it will be possible to know the needs of each application for different permissions, and then effectively control these permissions, such as blocking an application from reading your files or accessing the camera or microphone. Although this step is very large without a doubt, it leaves the door open to some kind of abuse of permissions, as some applications may exploit the user’s trust and grant them microphone or camera permissions to spy on him and obtain his information even in times when he is not using these applications originally.
Of course there is a simplified solution here by removing the ability of apps to access the camera or microphone when the app is not effective in the interface. But this solution means a major sacrifice to the many applications that will need to access the microphone and camera even while in the background, such as voice and video calling applications.
The best solution currently is what was included in the recently released iOS 14 system: when any application accesses the microphone or camera, a small colored dot will appear in the notification bar at the top of the screen, where the dot will be green if the front camera is activated, while the color will change to green when Microphone use.
In addition to the point, there will be a notification within the notification center to identify the application that is using the front camera or the microphone in the background and make it easier for the user to cancel the permissions or even remove the application from the phone.
Why should Android use a similar feature within it???
When thinking about it, it seems logical to have a clear and permanent notification when an app uses either the camera or the microphone, regardless of the system, but it has an additional importance in the Android system for a basic reason: the ability to install apps outside of the Google Play Store.
Even though it is clearly far from the level of security found in the App Store, there is no doubt that Google Play Store is extremely secure. But with the fact that Android phones can install applications from external sources that do not necessarily adhere to the standards of the store, there is in fact a greater possibility of applications spying on the user, especially applications that do not exist in the store originally, such as applications modified from famous platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram, or others.
This step will not be enough to make the security of the Android system parallel to the security of its competitor iOS, unfortunately, but it is an important first step to fill the privacy gap and make users have greater control over their privacy and prevent malicious application developers from spying on them clearly.
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