Apple apologizes for FaceTime bug, says fix coming next week

Apple is apologizing for a bug that affected users of its FaceTime app and says a fix for the problem will be implemented by next week.

{mosads}”We have fixed the Group FaceTime security bug on Apple’s servers and we will issue a software update to re-enable the feature for users next week,” Apple told CNBC on Friday.

“We sincerely apologize to our customers who were affected and all who were concerned about this security issue,” the company’s statement continued. “We appreciate everyone’s patience as we complete this process.”

The bug, which affected Group FaceTime calls, allowed callers to hear recipients before they took the call. Apple temporarily shut down the group feature of the popular app until they could develop a permanent fix.

The bug was first reported earlier this week and the company announced Monday that a fix was in the works. A spokesperson initially claimed that the fix would be issued in a patch “later this week.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned that the bug carried serious potential privacy implications and noted that a British intelligence agency had recently proposed asking tech companies to allow law enforcement to join some calls as secret participants to help stop criminal activity.

“Any future discovery of a software flaw that enables eavesdropping, false identities, message tampering, or any other compromise of communications security should be treated the same way as this latest weakness: with serious emergency mitigations, followed as soon as possible by a software update that removes the flaw,” the ACLU wrote in a blog post Thursday.

“And governments certainly shouldn’t consider adding such vulnerabilities on purpose,” the organization added.