House Dems demand answers from Apple on FaceTime bug

Top House Democrats are demanding answers from Apple CEO Tim Cook after a bug in the company’s FaceTime program allowed users to listen in on other devices even if their call hadn’t been accepted.

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who leads the panel’s consumer protection subcommittee, wrote to Cook on Tuesday expressing concern about the vulnerability that Apple says it fixed last week.

“As such, we are writing to better understand when Apple first learned of this security flaw, the extent to which the flaw has compromised consumers’ privacy, and whether there are other undisclosed bugs that currently exist and have not been addressed,” the two Democrats wrote.

{mosads}The flaw was discovered by a 14-year-old in Arizona on January 19, according to reports. More than a week later, Apple disabled the FaceTime Group feature where the bug was present and announced a fix on February 1.

Apple did not immediately respond when contacted by The Hill for comment.

Pallone and Schakowsky sent a list of questions to Apple, including asking when the company first became aware of the bug and demanding a full timeline of the incident. They also asked what steps Apple is taking in response to the incident and whether there have been any other bugs that were not disclosed.

“As a first step, we believe it is important for Apple to be transparent about its investigation into the Group FaceTime feature’s vulnerability and the steps it is taking to protect consumers’ privacy,” they wrote. “To date, we do not believe Apple has been as transparent as this serious issue requires.”