How to Avoid iPhone or iPad 2 FaceTime “Secretly” Taking Photos of You?

Is the camera on Apple iPhone 4 or Apple iPad 2 spying on you?

A rather creepy and quite interesting report came up from Apple Support Discussions Forum.

Some users reported having similar experiences on Apple FaceTime app where it displayed images supposedly taken from events and places where they did not even invoke FaceTime.

This just happened to me yesterday.

I have a dashboard mount for my phone. I had left the phone in the car when I ran in to get my sandwich. This was at a strip mall that I had never visited before and never connected to any WiFi. I parked in the middle of the lot, about 75ft from the doors to Subway. Ran it, got my food, hopped back in the car. I hit the button to see if anyone called me (no one did) and drove off. After I got in to where I was working and ate my sandwich, I tried to use FaceTime and saw a frozen image of me in the car from 20-30 minutes prior!

iPhone 4
iOS 4.3.1

—Detroit313

Another user wrote,

Hi all, I have the same issue. It all started when I decided to update to 4.3.1 on my iPhone 4. I restored it as new and pretty much just started over. No backup. My FaceTime would either be a image of me at a random point of time, or a black screen, so I called my service provider (Fido) and they sent me a replacement. The replacement was brand new. I opened it up and restored it as new and used it for about a couple hours then boom,
It happened again. I called apple and spoke to a senior advisor I believe and she said she had never heard of the the reports and she herself haven’t had that problem.

Either way she gave me her contact info and I will be communicating with her daily on reporting this issue.

—Joez248

It looks like even a unit replacement or a complete restore will not solve the problem.

Those who reported this problem seem to suggest that their iPhone camera was randomly taking photos even when not running FaceTime.

We could only guess that this problem has something to do with the FaceTime and the multitasking features added to iOS 4. Users could have closed the FaceTime app, but the FaceTime app may still be running in the background ceaselessly capturing images.

Furthermore, FaceTime bringing up old images might be related to Apple FaceTime loading static image problem on iOS 4.3. So what they saw was the last frame that FaceTime captured before it crashed in the background.

Solution

After every FaceTime session, make sure FaceTime app is terminated completely and not running in the background.

Terminate FaceTime (and all background Apps) by rebooting

• Hold down the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons simultaneously for at least 10 seconds. Your screen should turn black.
• Keep holding the two buttons until the Apple logo appears.
• Once the Apple logo appears, release the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons.

For location of Sleep/Wake and Home button see “How to Restart iPad that Crashed, Froze, Bricked or Stops Responding“

Final Words

Although it may be a hassle to do so after every FaceTime session, this is the only way you can be sure it’s no longer actively taking images of you and your surrounding without your knowledge or consent. We can just hope for Apple to fix this problem in the upcoming iOS update. It would also be nice if the camera has a LED indicator to show if it is actively being used by an app (or rogue app).

For now, avoid bringing your iPhone and iPad 2 to the bathroom and bedroom with you just to be safe. =)