Why a green and orange dot on your phone can indicate someone is listening and watching
Recently, I received a question from Teresa, who emailed and asked:
“What does the little orange dot in the right corner of my iPhone mean?”
The orange and green dots you see at the top of the screen are part of an enhanced privacy and security update for iOS 14 or later. Find out more about what these notification points mean below, not only for iPhone, but also for Android.
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What does it mean if you see the orange dot on the top of your iPhone?
When an orange dot appears at the top right of the screen — just above the cellular lines — it means an app is using the iPhone’s microphone.
(CyberGuy.com)
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When an orange dot appears in the upper right corner of the screen – just above the cellular lines – it means an app is using your iPhone microphone.
It can be any third-party app, or even when you use the basic functions of your phone, such as making calls, getting help from Siri, or when you use speech-to-text to dictate text messages to friends and family.
Which iPhone apps use your microphone?
If you see the orange dot, you can:
- Swipe down from the top right of the screen to see which apps are using your microphone
- You will see the orange icon at the top of the screen with the device next to it
- In the case below, the app using the microphone is the iPhone
The orange and green dots you see at the top of the screen are part of an enhanced privacy and security update for iOS 14 or later.
(CyberGuy.com)
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What does it mean if you see the green dot on the top of your iPhone?
When a green dot appears in the upper right corner of the screen – just above the mobile lines – this means that an app is using either camera or camera with the microphone on your phone.
Here’s how the green dot appears on your iPhone.
(CyberGuy.com)
What iPhone apps does your camera use?
- Like the orange dot, if you see the green dot, you can:
- Swipe down from the top right of the screen to see which apps are using the camera or camera with microphone
- You will see the green icon at the top of the screen with the device next to it
- In the case below, the app using the camera is Facetime
This shows that your iPhone camera is using FaceTime.
(CyberGuy.com)
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What does it mean if you see the green dot on the top of your Android device?
This is how it will look on an Android.
(CyberGuy.com)
If you have Android 12 or later, you’ll notice that there’s only a green dot indicator (no orange dot) at the top right of the screen that will inform you when your phone’s camera or microphone is being used by an app. When an app first gets access the camera or microphone, you will see a camera icon and a microphone icon before it changes to just a green dot. This dot remains on as long as the app is using the microphone or camera.
Look at the top right of the Android screen.
(CyberGuy.com)
Which Android apps use the microphone or camera?
If you see the green dot, you can:
- Swipe down from the top of the screen to viewnotification line
Swipe down from the top of the Android screen.
(CyberGuy.com)
- Click the green dot and you’ll see which apps are using the camera or microphone
This shows which apps are using the Android camera or microphone.
(CyberGuy.com)
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What if an app uses the microphone or camera and I can’t find it to delete the app?
If you see that your microphone and/or camera are in use even though you don’t have an app open, it probably means that an app has permission to use these features on your phone even when it’s not in use, or your phone may have been hacked.
Click here for step-by-step instructions to see which apps can access your microphone or camera and when.
To avoid this entirely, consider adding antivirus software to your phone to ward off malware.
Unlock your technology
My greatest desire is to educate and inform you about the increased real threat to each of our connected devices and encourage you to apply strong antivirus security protection to everything in your life that is connected to the rest of the world. The best way to protect yourself is to install antivirus software on your devices.
See my expert review of the best antivirus protection for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices by searching “Best Antivirus” on CyberGuy.com by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the top of my website.
Related: Free Antivirus: Should You Use It?
Unlock your technology for protection and security.
(CyberGuy.com)
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Now that you know what the green and orange dots mean, what other questions do you have that we can answer? Let us know. We would love to hear from you.
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