The technology world was recently taken aback when it was revealed that OnePlus’s recent flagship smartphone camera could see through clothes and plastics.
In the quad-camera setup of OnePlus 8 Pro, the color filter sensor is capable of seeing through objects that have no IR shielding.
Now, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer has announced that it will temporarily disable the “see-through” feature of OnePlus 8 Pro’s camera. Announcing it in a Weibo post, OnePlus has apologized for the unintended feature and has said it will roll out an update in the Chinese region within a week to disable the camera feature.
#OnePlus8Pro Color Filter camera can see through some plastic objects 😯
Here I tried Oculus Quest controllers pic.twitter.com/z9j4hlkioB
— Ben Geskin 📸📱👨💻 (@BenGeskin) May 13, 2020
It goes without saying that a similar update will also be rolled out in other regions as well. According to OnePlus, they will disable the feature temporarily until privacy issues related to the feature are addressed.
What makes the feature problematic is the fact that OnePlus 8 Pro’s camera can see through thin clothing material, which could be misused to invade the privacy of individuals.
This reminds me of a similar famous incident where Sony recalled 700,000 camcorders as they were allegedly capable of seeing through clothes.
Nonetheless, OnePlus’ decision to temporarily disable the X-ray vision feature of OnePlus 8 Pro is sensible as there could be catastrophic implications of the Photochrom feature.
