PayPal app silently accessing my camera

[Zectbumo]

I just discovered that the PayPal app is silently accessing my camera on my Android phone. The PayPal app asks for permission to use the camera and I think that's normal for this kind of app because you can deposit checks using the camera or take photos of yourself for a profile picture. But I noticed in my access logs that PayPal had accessed my camera 12 times… even though I never used the check deposit or profile photo feature. So what I did next was enable a trace so when the app uses the camera it would notify me. A few days later (just now) I got the notification. The PayPal app tried to access my camera while the app was not running and my phone was sitting on my desk idle and the screen was off. The camera access seems to have coincided with a payment I received via PayPal. Why would the app want to access my camera when a payment is received is beyond me.

[snowshoe]

It's either a bug or purposely programmed, would not know why but, many things behind the scenes are tied together.  Suggest that you try contacting Tech Support and see what their thoughts are.

https://ppmts.custhelp.com/app/home

[Zectbumo]

I logged in a ticket #975806 with technical support and I haven't got a response in over 16 days.

[amshoemaker]

This is something that I've found troubling as well. Every time a transaction is made via PayPal (even through the website) the app wakes up an attempts to acces the camera. It's not a bug - this kind of funcitonality can't come about by accident. PayPal's core service has to send a push notification out to any devices associated with the account when a payment is made, the app has to understand the notification and respond appropriately by accessing the camera, taking a picture, and (presumably, I haven't profiled it myself) sending it back to PayPal. This is very much an intended feature, albeit a pretty creepy one.

At least Android users with Kit-Kat or later have the opportunity to block access using Privacy Guard. One presumes the same feature is built into the iOS app and iPhone users have no defense.