Google Acknowledges Android Bug that Infiltrated Microphone Access of Several WhatsApp Users

After a tweet from a Twitter engineer, Foad Dabiri circulated on the social media platform, WhatsApp has urged Google to investigate and remediate what they believe is an Android bug causing the microphone access of several users to act on their own. The bug caused a public stir regarding privacy issues as the microphone access was being used, even when the WhatsApp app was supposed to be inactive.

WhatsApp did not wait long to investigate the activation of the microphone access in-app. After the investigation, they denied any wrongdoing in a tweet and sought out Google to get to the bottom of things. In WhatsApp’s tweet, they state that they blame a bug on Android that “mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard”.

After careful investigation, Google has released a tweet urging Android users who have downloaded WhatsApp on their phones to update the app to fix the bug. Google has acknowledged and admitted that the bug on Android producers erroneous privacy indicators and notifications in the Android Privacy Dashboard.

In case you would like to see if there’s any ongoing microphone activity happening without your knowledge, check if there is a “green dot” showing on your smartphone devices. If there appears to be one, then your microphone is active.