Android users, this app will tell you if your phone camera is spying on you

When Apple introduced a new security feature in iOS 14, I wondered if Android users would also get a feature that reveals if their camera is spying on them. Well, there’s an app for that. Access Dots is an Android app that lets you know if any of your apps accesses your camera and microphone without your knowledge.

To remind you, users who updated their iPhone’s OS to iOS 14 now see a small dot in the top right corner of the phone’s display. The green dot means that an app uses the camera, and it turns orange if the mic is used. Access Dots provides you with the same thing: it adds the same iOS 14 style indicators to your screen whenever any third-party App uses your phone’s camera or microphone. Although, ironically, this is also a third-party app. You’ll need to whitelist it if you want it to work.

On the plus side, Access Dots itself doesn’t request for the camera or microphone access. It’s free for download, and in this case, the indicators will be placed in the top right corner of your display. Access Dots will also be visible even on your lock screen, and it’s supported down to Android 7.0. You can access Access Log from the app’s main settings screen. The Access Log shows when the camera or microphone was accessed, which app accessed them, and how long the access lasted.

You get all the basic features for free. However, if you donate to the app developers, you’ll get access to some additional features. You’ll be able to assign any other colors to the indication dots or change their size and position.

As I mentioned, this is also a third-party app and not a native Android feature. If this concerns you, you can always use Access Dots for a few days only. As GHacks points out, you can check which apps could be using your camera or mic, delete them, and then delete Access Dots too. So, if you’d like to check it out, you can download it here.

[via PetaPixel]