Instagram users thought they were being secretly FILMED after iPhone showed ‘camera always on’

INSTAGRAM users feared the app may have been filming them through their iPhone camera.

It's thanks to a genius new iPhone feature that reveals when apps are snooping through your microphone or camera.

Thankfully, it turns out that the Instagram fiasco was just a bug that's being fixed.

But the bug caused a stir when it was uncovered by Apple's new feature.

In the iOS 14 update for iPhone, users are warned with a notification light when apps are listening in.

"Casually browsing Instagram when suddenly the new iOS 14 camera/microphone indicator comes on," said designer and gadget geek @KevDoy on Twitter.

"Then control panel ratted out the app behind it. This is going to change things."

Another said: "I love that iOS 14 is snitching on apps. Now we get to see who wasn't entirely honest about their cam and clipboard use."

One user defended Instagram, saying: "There is a legitimate reason to always be accessing the camera.

"When you swipe over from your feed into the camera, Instagram wants the camera to be instantly ready to take a photo, which means initialising the camera before the user even enters the camera," they wrote.

Instagram confirmed that the camera issue was a bug, and will be fixing it.

"We only access your camera when you tell us to – for example, when you swipe from Feed to Camera," an Instagram spokesperson said.

"We found and are fixing a bug in iOS 14 Beta that mistakenly indicates that some people are using the camera when they aren’t.

"We do not access your camera in those instances, and no content is recorded."

It's all part of the new iOS 14 update, which will roll out to everyone in September.

Of course, you can bag the update early – find out how to install iOS 14.

In iOS 14, an orange dot will appear in the upper right corner of the screen when the microphone – or camera – is activated.

By swiping into your Control Centre, you'll be able to see details about which app is using the microphone.

If you suspect something is up, you should check the app's permissions in Settings.

You can deny specific apps access to your microphone or camera, for instance.

And if you're really worried, you could just delete the app altogether.

In other news, there's a new iPhone homscreen in iOS 14, and fans are divided over it.

Find out about all the new iOS 14 features here.

And check out our review for the new (and very cheap) iPhone SE.

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