Apple temporarily disables FaceTime because of a bug that let iPhone users eavesdrop on persons they’re calling

Apple has activated group calls via FaceTime with iOS 12.1 on October 30. As its name suggests, this feature allows to make FaceTime video calls with several people. Now Apple has temporarily disabled this functionality due to a critical error discovered yesterday.

The error allows user to listen to another person by initiating a FaceTime call with the recipient, and adding as their third party their own phone number.

In this way, FaceTime considered it as a FaceTime group call and activated the microphone of the person you were calling before even answering the call. In fact, even if the recipient did not accept the call, their audio became part of that conversation.

Now you can answer for yourself on FaceTime even if they don’t answer🤒#Apple explain this.. pic.twitter.com/gr8llRKZxJ

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The bug does not end here but if a user, instead of not answering, decided to silence the FaceTime call by pressing once the power key or any of the volume buttons, the front camera of the person will also activated. This allowed a user to see the person through the front camera, in addition to listening to him through the microphone.

Apple has updated its system status page to reflect that there is a problem with FaceTime. The 9to5mac site reports that Apple will publish a solution to this problem later this week.