programminghoch10 / CameraControl

Manage camera access on a system level with XPosed.

CameraControl

Next level camera management.

CameraControl lets you manage access to your cameras depending on which side of the phone they face.

Why? Because I hate it when Snapchat opens up and forces me to see my own depression. But completely disabling all the cameras for Snapchat would render the whole app useless.

This was developed and tested on LineageOS 17.1, but should work on any android >= 8.1.

How to install:

1. Install the module on a system with a running XPosed framework
2. Activate the module and select apps you want to limit camera access to.

How to configure:

• Route 1:
  • Go back to the module list
  • Long press on CameraControl and select App Info
  • On the bottom, click on Advanced
  • Click on Additional settings in the app
• Route 2:
  • Go into device settings
  • Click on apps
  • Somehow tell the device to show all apps
  • Select CameraControl
  • On the bottom, click Advanced
  • Click on Additional settings in the app
• Route 3:
  • Open up an ADB shell
  • Run command am start-activity com.programminghoch10.cameracontrol/.SettingsActivity

Now configure away!

Small intel: The configure activity is not accessible from the launcher, because LSPosed does not let modules hide their own launcher icons by default anymore. Defining a settings activity is an easy way to provide an accessible configuration interface, without forcing yet another launcher icon into the list. One does not have to open the menu often anyways.

What it looks like

How it works (technical stuff)

Here is how this module prevents access and hides the cameras.

• Camera2 API
  • Hiding cameras
    This module is hiding cameras by removing them from the results of the method getCameraIdList. For each camera on this list, it queries the CameraCharacteristics of that camera and removes it from the list if this camera meets the filter requirements.
  • Block camera access
    This module is blocking camera access by hooking method openCamera. Before the camera open call is sent to the system, this module checks if the camera shall be filtered and if so, prevents the system open call.
  • Hide flash
    This module hides the existence of the flash by hooking method get within the CameraCharacteristics. If the key for flash is queried, it returns false and if the key for autofocus capabilites is queried, it removes flash associated focus capabilites from the list.
  • Disable all cameras
    The module disables the whole Camera2 API by setting the testing flag sCameraServiceDisabled to true. This way the internal camera manager will not respond to calls anymore.
• Camera API (deprecated)
  The old camera api is depricated since android 5 and most applications do not use it.
  • Hide / Block cameras
    This module does not support seperated hiding and blocking for the old camera api since those mechanisms are linked together. If one is selected, both mechanisms will be active.
    • Hide cameras
      The cameras are hidden by changing the result of the method getNumberOfCameras. The module checks each camera in the list for filter criteria and lowers the counter when a camera should be hidden. At the same time it saves a new mapping of camera indicies to be used by the blocking access hooks.
    • Block camera access
      To block the camera access the module hooks method open. Before relaying the system call, it checks the new camera mapping created whilst hiding the cameras and also additionally checks for the filter criteria.
  • Hide flash
    The module tries to hide the flash by overwriting the result of getSupportedFlashModes. It also prevents calls to setFlashMode in order to prevent the flash from being turned on.
  • Disable all cameras
    Disabling the camera api is not that easy, so instead we just activate full blocking capabilites.