2021 BRN Discussion, page-31174

Qualcomm’s new always-on smartphone camera is a privacy nightmare

“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.


Heape said that “always-on camera data never leaves the secure sensing hub while it’s looking for faces,” implying that the data isn’t sent to the cloud and that apps on the phone won’t be able to access it.