“’Your phone’s front camera is always securely looking for your face, even if you don’t touch it or raise to wake it.’ That’s how Qualcomm Technologies vice president of product management Judd Heape introduced the company’s new always-on camera capabilities in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor set to arrive in top-shelf Android phones early next year.
Depending on who you are, that statement can either be exciting or terrifying. For Qualcomm, it thinks this new feature will enable new use cases, like being able to wake and unlock your phone without having to pick it up or have it instantly lock when it no longer sees your face.
But for those of us with any sense of how modern technology is used to violate our privacy, a camera on our phone that’s always capturing images even when we’re not using it sounds like the stuff of nightmares and has a cost to our privacy that far outweighs any potential convenience benefits.”
Source : Qualcomm’s new always-on smartphone camera is a potential privacy nightmare – The Verge