Camera privacy bug found in Firefox Android in 2019 hasn’t been fixed yet

Camera privacy bug found in Firefox Android in 2019 hasn’t been fixed yet

The issue was originally raised in July 2019 by a Firefox Android user stating that their phone’s camera remains active when the app is in the background or even when the phone is locked.


Last year, a bug was found in Mozilla Firefox that hasn’t been fixed yet and is now distressing Android users’ ensuing privacy concerns.


Courtesy of an Appear TV (video delivery platform) employee who brought the issue to light in July 2019; they reported that the Android smartphone cameras remained active even after the browser was running in the background or when the phone’s screen was locked.



Screenshot from official Mozilla forum addressing the issue on 9th July, 2019.



The bug manifested when users chose to video stream using a website loaded on Firefox rather than the native/actual application. Many users basically go down this road, in order to avoid installing intrusive applications that ask for unencumbered access to the device’s data and storage.


Regardless of this, the browser kept video streaming even in situations when it shouldn’t do so, deeming it as major data and privacy breach whilst consuming users’ bandwidth.

Despite bringing the issue to notoriety, the bug hasn’t been fixed. The problem will be resolved by October 2020 as claimed by Mozilla. The bug fix will aim to limit and address the issue by defaulting to audio-only when the phone screen is locked.


See: camera privacy found firefox android fixed