On May 6, 2023, Twitter social network engineer Foad Dabiri noticed unusual activity on WhatsApp messaging overnight. Indeed, he found several audio recordings made by the application between 4:20 a.m. and 6 a.m.
“WhatsApp turned on the microphone while I was sleeping, and since I woke up at 6 a.m. (and that’s just part of the duration [of the recordings]). What’s going on?” he then wrote in the caption on his publication. Hours later, Twitter boss Elon Musk reacted to the news. “You can’t trust WhatsApp”, he does not hesitate to comment before offering his own messaging service on the application. But then, is it a simple bug or are we all victims of recordings without our knowledge?
On May 9, 2023, WhatsApp then reacted to his statements and confirmed a bug. However, this flaw does not come from their service, but rather from Google or Android.
“In the last 24 hours, we have been in contact with a Twitter engineer who reported an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp,” the encrypted messaging app says on its Twitter account. According to her, this is an issue with Android’s interpretation of access permissions. WhatsApp would then have asked Google to investigate and correct this problem.
The platform reassured its users about the use of the microphone. The latter is only activated during calls or during a voice or video recording. In addition, other people have found this flaw confirming that the problem comes from Android.
To check if a recording has been made without your knowledge, BFTMV Tech advises you to access your settings and then go to the “confidentiality” section. If you have an Android, you can then click on “Privacy Dashboard” and then on “microphone”. If you have an IOS device, click on “app privacy report” in the “privacy and security” section of the settings.
