Android 9 Could Offer Security Feature to Prevent Camera Access from Idle Apps

According to a recent Android Open Source Project (AOSP) commit, Google’s engineers implemented a new security feature in Android’s Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) kernel module that prevents camera access from idle apps or services running in the background with an UID (User ID). The security feature won’t allow idle apps or services that were running in the background for a certain amount of time, which could be user-defined or implemented by default, to access the camera. These could include spyware and other malicious programs that could spy on you through the device’s camera.