{"id":22932,"date":"2023-05-10T05:24:14","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T05:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/8024b1e9-a100-49af-9c99-58ea089ef43d12"},"modified":"2023-05-10T05:24:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T05:24:14","slug":"whatsapp-bug-is-making-some-android-phones-falsely-report-microphone-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/whatsapp-bug-is-making-some-android-phones-falsely-report-microphone-access\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp bug is making some Android phones falsely report microphone access"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/whatsapp-bug-is-making-some-android-phones-falsely-report-microphone-access.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>Google and WhatsApp have confirmed they are aware of a bug that makes it appear as if WhatsApp is accessing phones\u2019 microphones unnecessarily on some Android devices. The issue first cropped up a month ago, but gained new attention after a Twitter engineer tweeted about it in a post that was boosted by Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>An image shared by Twitter engineer Foad Dabiri appeared to show that the microphone had been repeatedly running in the background while he wasn\u2019t using the app. He tweeted a screenshot from Android\u2019s <span class=\"waslinkname\">Privacy Dashboard<\/span>, which tracks how often apps access a device\u2019s microphone and camera.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"end-legacy-contents\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"ffba199d5f6c4c1990034b780f07362e\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background, while I was asleep and since I woke up at 6AM (and that&#8217;s just a part of the timeline!) What&#8217;s going on? <span class=\"waslinkname\">pic.twitter.com\/pNIfe4VlHV<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Foad Dabiri (@foaddabiri) <span class=\"waslinkname\">May 6, 2023<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n<p>Musk retweeted Dabiri\u2019s post, saying \u201cWhatsApp cannot be trusted.\u201d Incidentally, Musk is known to be a fan <span class=\"waslinkname\">of Signal<\/span>, and has said encrypted direct messages on Twitter could <span class=\"waslinkname\">roll out<\/span> as soon as this month. The company didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement shared on Twitter, WhatsApp <span class=\"waslinkname\">suggested <\/span>it was an Android-related issue, and not a result of inappropriate microphone access by the messaging app \u201cWe believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n<p>Dabiri is not the first to notice the issue. WhatsApp <span class=\"waslinkname\">blog<\/span> <em>wabetainfo<\/em> <span class=\"waslinkname\">highlighted<\/span> the bug a month ago, describing it at the time as \u201ca false positive\u201d affecting owners of some Pixel and Samsung devices. They added that restarting the phone may be a possible fix. Meanwhile, Google has said little about what could be causing the discrepancy, but confirmed it\u2019s looking into the matter. &#8220;We are aware of the issue and are working closely with WhatsApp to investigate,\u201d a Google spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google and WhatsApp have confirmed they are aware of a bug that makes it appear as if WhatsApp is accessing phones\u2019 microphones unnecessarily on some Android devices. The issue first cropped up a month ago, but gained new attention after a Twitter engineer tweeted about it in a post that was boosted by Elon Musk. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22932"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}