In Twitter, the director of engineering, Fod Dabiri posted a screenshot of his Pixel 7 Professional, claiming that WhatsApp repeatedly accesses the phone’s microphone, even if the app is not being used actively. The screenshot of Android’s privacy dashboard suggests that WhatsApp had accessed the phone’s microphone at least nine times a night between 4 am and 7 pm local time.
Whatsapp has been the use of the microphone within the background, generation I used to be asleep and trust I awoke at 6am (and that’s simply part of the timeline!) Whicurring?) pic.twitter.com/pnife4vlhv
– Foad Dabiri (@foaddabiri) May 6, 2023
In the tweet, he wrote, “WhatsApp is using a microphone in the background, ever since I was sleeping and since then I woke up at 6 in the morning (and this is only a part of the schedule!) What is happening?”
Following the claim of Pod, many WhatsApp users on Twitter, along with Pixel’s Support Forum, have said that even after getting out of or closing the app, the green dot related to the microphone is looking active on their device. Some have also complained about this problem for more than a month. After checking the permission history from the Settings menu on the Android device, some users have claimed that the WhatsApp is taking access to the microphone in the background.
After this tweet by Fode, Twitter’s CEP Elon Musk also reacted and wrote while retweeting Dabiri’s post, “Don’t trust anything, not even anything.”
Believe Not Anything, Now not even not anything
– elon musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023
Whatsapp has reacted to the issue and rejected all claims saying that it is a bug of Android. In a statement shared on Twitter, the instant messaging platform stated that it is an Android bug “which gives incorrect information in their privacy dashboard”. The company said that it had asked Google to investigate the issue.
In addition, WhatsApp reiterated that users have complete control over their microphone settings. The company added in the statement, “After getting permission, WhatsApp takes access to the mike only when a user is calling or recording a voice note or video-and even then, these communications are secured by end-to-end encryption, so WhatsApp cannot hear them.”
Over the closing 24 hours we wen involved with a twitter engineer who posted a subject along with his pixel telephone and whatsapp.
We imagine this can be a trojan humse on Android that Mis-Attributes Knowledge of their privateness dashboard and feature requested Google to Analyze and remedite. https://t.co/mnbi3qe6gp
– Whatsapp (@WhatsApp) May 9, 2023
Apart from this, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) Rajiv Chandrashekhar on Wednesday, May 10 Said That the government will investigate the allegations against WhatsApp. The IT Ministry “will take action on any violation of privacy, even if the new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP) is prepared.”
