For over a year there has been a bug in the Firefox Android app that puts users’ data at risk. Here’s what’s going on
Although Mozilla is one of the software houses most attentive to the privacy of its users and despite the fact that its Firefox browser is chosen by many precisely because it is considered a more effective tool than Chrome to defend it, for exactly one year Firefox has been affected by a serious bug in the management of the camera.
But there’s worse: not only Mozilla hasn’t fixed it yet, but it also claims that it won’t do so before October this year. This is no small bug: when a website opened in a Firefox for Android tab gets access to the camera and microphone from the user, those two smartphone components remain active even if the user switches apps or locks the smartphone. It is quite possible, in this way, that the smartphone continues to transmit audio and video without the user noticing, and this is a huge privacy issue that, however, Mozilla apparently has no plans to address anytime soon despite the fact that the first report of this problem dates back to July 2019. Exactly one year ago.
Firefox for Android: why the camera stays on
In principle, it’s perfectly understandable that the camera stays on, at least in some cases. For example, if we’re using a video conferencing platform via Firefox we might need to put the browser in the background to open another app or document. Or we may need to lock the screen to move from one room to another. In all these cases, it’s fine for the camera to stay on, in the first case it’s even necessary. However, it’s also necessary that the user is warned about this because, usually, most people take for granted that if you put an app in the background it’s like you’re freezing it.
Why users use Firefox for video conferencing
You might wonder, at this point, why we should continue to use Firefox to make a video conference on Zoom, for example, if in fact there is the Zoom app. Or Microsoft Teams, Skype and so on. Many users prefer to use the browser so as not to install an additional app and grant it access to their data, microphone and camera, and because they consider the browser (especially Firefox) a safer tool than the app.
Mozilla, asked about this bug by ZDNet, said through a spokesperson “As with dedicated conferencing apps, we provide a system notification that lets people know when a Web site in Firefox accesses the camera or microphone, but we recognize that we can do better, especially since it’s not visible when the screen is locked.” They can do better, but not until October when the next version of the browser arrives.