Google confirms Android bug that erroneously showed constant WhatsApp microphone access

Abner Li | Jun 20 2023 - 5:45 pm PT

Reports emerged last month about a bug that made it seem WhatsApp for Android was always using the microphone. Google today acknowledged the issue and a straightforward fix.

In a tweet from the Android Developers account this afternoon, Google cited a “recent Android bug affecting a limited number of WhatsApp users produced erroneous privacy indicators and notifications in the Android Privacy Dashboard.”

Specifically, it appeared as if WhatsApp was constantly accessing an Android device’s microphone, which would have big privacy implications if it were accurate.

At the time, WhatsApp believed it was a “bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard” rather than the app accessing the microphone more than needed/requested. That tweet asking Google to “investigate and remediate” was quite high-profile, with issues like this usually handled directly between engineering teams. The response spoke to how sensitive microphone privacy is, especially for Meta.

Google confirms as much today and that the fix is updating WhatsApp to the latest version: “We thank WhatsApp for their partnership and apologize for any confusion this bug may have caused users.”

So far, we’re light on technical details of this issue. The viral example last month took place on a Pixel, which was just updated to Android 13 QPR3 in the past week. That user-facing changelog makes no mention of this issue/fix. Another possibility is that the WhatsApp update features a fix and/or mitigation.

We’ve reached out to Google for more information.