Unlike cameras, though, apps are not required to ask for permission to use these sensors. In a surprising discovery, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) uncovered that ambient light sensors are vulnerable to privacy threats when embedded on a smart device’s screen... An open-access paper on this work was published in Science Advances.
“This work turns your device's ambient light sensor and screen into a camera! Ambient light sensors are tiny devices deployed in almost all portable devices and screens that surround us in our daily lives,” says Princeton University professor Felix Heide, who was not involved with the paper. “As such, the authors highlight a privacy threat that affects a comprehensive class of devices and has been overlooked so far.” more Interesting, but no need for the average person to worry.
