Lawyer sues Apple over FaceTime bug

Houston

APPLE Inc has been sued by a Houston lawyer who claims that his iPhone inadvertently allowed an unknown person to eavesdrop on his private conversation with a client.

Apple has come under fire for a bug in its iOS 12.1 iPhone that lets outsiders listen to conversations held during live video group chats using the company's FaceTime feature.

Attorney Larry Williams II said that the glitch intrudes on the privacy of "one's most intimate conversations without consent", according to the complaint that he filed in state court in Houston.

He said that he was eavesdropped on while taking sworn testimony during a client deposition.

He is seeking unspecified punitive damages on his claims of negligence, product liability, misrepresentation and warranty breach.

Apple representatives did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking comment on the complaint.

The bug allowed a user to call someone on FaceTime and automatically begin hearing the other person before they picked up the call. The other person was not aware that the caller can hear them.

When a user created a FaceTime conference call, this glitch would put in their phone number, and then add the number of another person. The flaw also allowed video to be sent if the other user clicked either their power button or one of the volume controls.

Apple mitigated the problem on Monday by remotely disabling multi-person FaceTime. It also said that it would release a software update later this week to fix the issue. BLOOMBERG