Fawaz and graduate student Yucheng Yang investigated whether this "mic-off-light-on" phenomenon was more widespread. They tried out many different videoconferencing applications on major operating systems, including iOS, Android, Windows and Mac, checking to see if the apps still accessed the microphone when it was muted.
"It turns out, in the vast majority of cases, when you mute yourself, these apps do not give up access to the microphone," says Fawaz. "And that's a problem. When you're muted, people don't expect these apps to collect data."...
Turning off a microphone
is possible in most device operating systems, but it usually means
navigating through several menus. Instead, the team suggests the
solution might lie in developing easily accessible software "switches"
or even hardware switches that allow users to manually enable and
disable their microphones. more
