It’s actually apparently a Japanese law.
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-turn-the-camera-shutter-sound...
(also not a law)
It's a really exciting project and I hope other phone manufacturers integrate some of those ideas.
And the microphones, please :)
https://www.apple.com/mac/docs/Apple_T2_Security_Chip_Overvi...
All Mac notebooks with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that ensures the microphone is disabled whenever the lid is closed. On 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air computers with the T2 chip, this disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and prevents any software—even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip—from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed. (The camera is not disconnected in hardware because its field of view is completely obstructed with the lid closed.)
I guess the main problem that no smartphone manufacturer wants to address is: People who take photos without permission to other people. It would be reasonable to enforce a law on all manufactures to add visible LED when the phone camera is being used, in my opinion at least.
That isn't really what people are worried about here. The issue is when a rogue app decides to start recording video of you without you knowing -- having a camera indicator LED which is in series with the camera's VCC (like almost all laptops have these days) would solve that problem.
There are is a discussion we could have about whether taking a photo of someone in a public setting is something without permission is ethical (and whether the benefit of helping people in private situations would offset the downside of making it harder to discretely record evidence of wrong-doing). But that's not really what this discussion of having an indicator light is about.
I don’t know what the solution could be. Maybe a vibration of a specific kind?
I think Apple should address this. It’s a good next step in terms of privacy focused Apple and it’s something that will be rewarding for the user to see that whenever the camera opens, something happens. Good PR points for Apple. A win for the user.
It should be trivial to delay LED's 'off' if it happens too soon after the 'on' signal.
There are many possible solutions if designers actually care about users' privacy.
Did it using this script: https://tenderlovemaking.com/2014/03/26/webcam-photos-with-r...
Our app, Greypad, is a PDF reader that uses the front-facing camera to detect when other people are looking at your device and then blurs the contents of your screen upon detection.
All apps, however, must first explicitly request permission from the user in order to access the camera(s).
Greypad: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/greypad/id1450783054
People are always filming you in public, in the hopes of being the next viral Instagram sensation.
The camera cannot be accessed without displaying it on the screen.
Edit: downvoter is welcome to point me to any model of Apple hardware that has a hardware radio switch or a hardware cover for the camera lens? The secure enclave is maybe the one exception to the above rule, but is highly software-supported.
Also another poster said that the camera can’t get power without power going through the led indicator first.
Windows Phone 7's chassis specification mandated that manufacturers include a hardwired LED that lit up when the front-facing camera is active. But Android did not mandate this (or much of anything), and so the Qualcomm Reference Device (QRD) didn't implement it. The QRD is important, because many low-end manufacturers bootstrap their product design with a QRD and make the minimum number of changes to arrive at a viable product. But manufacturers needed to do extra engineering work and add to the BOM to make a Windows version of their cheap Android products.
It eventually became clear that consumers weren't willing to pay any premium for Windows Phone's higher standard for privacy. (I'm not claiming this was the only cause of WP's failure in the market -- just one small contributing factor.) So we intentionally pared down later versions of the chassis specification to minimize the differences between it and the QRD, including removing this privacy LED requirement. In theory, this would have allowed manufacturers to churn out cheap Windows Phones as easily as they were churning out cheap Android Phones.
Of course in hindsight, that was all too little, too late. Android won the cheap phone market for a huge number of reasons, one tiny factor of which is that it didn't require a privacy LED. The moral I took away? If your products cost more because they're safer, your marketing needs to ensure you get credit for that. Safety isn't obvious to someone glancing at your product; you need to spell all it out for the consumer. And if you can't find a way to articulate it, then reconsider whether you really need that safety feature.
Camera can only be accessed by the foreground app.
If you make sure that all smartphone models use the same blinking frequency (perhaps 3Hz) and LED color then people would quickly learn what it means.
Guessing they currently don't have a hardware LED because it might freak people out how much the camera is actually on. Likely no onscreen indicator for the same reason. If they were going to make this change, they'd have to weigh the benefits of making this change against spooking users who have no idea why their bank app is using their front facing camera.
I'm surprised not even a simple LED is present though. IIRC Macbooks LEDs are wired such that you can't use them without the current flowing through the LED
