WhatsApp has dismissed a Twitter engineer’s allegation that it is accessing his device’s microphone in the background. The messaging platform gave the clarification after Foad Dabiri has claimed that WhatsApp app on his Android phone was constantly using the microphone while he was asleep. The engineer’s tweet amassed 71 million views.
Reacting to Dabiri’s claim, Twitter chief Elon Musk tweeted, “Trust nothing, not even nothing.”
Declining the privacy breach, WhatsApp said that only users have full control over their mic settings. The platform further claimed that it only accesses the mic when a user is on a voice or video call within the app. Even then, they are end-to-end encrypted, WhatsApp clarified.
The messaging platform had contacted the Twitter engineer who is using Google Pixel phone.
“We believe this is a bug on Android that misattributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate,” it added.
“Violation of privacy”
Union Minister of State for IT & Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said the government will examine the issue.
“This is an unacceptable breach and violation of privacy. We will be examining this immediately and will act on any violation of privacy even as new Digital Personal Data protection bill is being readied,” the Minister said in a tweet.
Meanwhile, several other users have also claimed that they faced similar issues.