Now, that last part is important, because hits — naturally — puts my profile at risk. As such, a few days ago, I was in shock, because after a quick call via the instant messaging app, the green microphone access indicator on the top right of my screen stays on.
Mark Zuckerberg was listening to me!
Yes, I freaked out. Despite being the guy who wrote the guide on how to stay safe from Malware, that doesn’t make my phone immune to malicious software. Nor does it make me any less of a risk-taker. By which I mean bad decision maker, but you get my point.
Well, luckily, thanks to a tweet from Android Developers, I can now rest assured that it was just a bug. Right?Right?
A recent Android bug affecting a limited number of WhatsApp users produced erroneous privacy indicators and notifications in the Android Privacy Dashboard.
Users can now update their WhatsApp app to address this issue.
We thank WhatsApp for their partnership and apologize…
— Android Developers (@AndroidDev) June 21, 2023
Well, it turns out that this has happened to many other users online, so we can start a support group WhatsApp chat if you’d like to. The good news is that it was just a false alarm, though, so this will maybe, probably not happen again.
And, while on the subject: kudos to Meta and WhatsApp’s team for collaborating with Google on this one, as the fix actually rolled out through a patch to the IM app. So, if you’ve had this weird bug happen to you: you probably have a pending update right now.
As of now, we can say that no damage has been done — beyond potential emotional scarring. If you happen to find yourself in this bug-a-licious situation, just restart your phone and it should be fine. Right? Right?…
