[techjuice]

Currently there is no way to tell, a solution to this problem would be by default the camera is physically covered and the microphone is physically disconnected by default. In order to record you would have to physically flip a mechanical switch to uncover the camera and physically flip a switch to connect the microphone.

Even with physical switches to uncover the camera(s), and connect the mics, there is still the possibility that the other sensors in the phone might be able to detect the sound vibrations that the accelerometer and gyroscope are picking up.

This is the same concept of some electronics that you may technically have pressed the power button, but it if it is physically plugged in and has no physical switch to connect/disconnect power there is still power flowing through it (e.g. car battery, servers, speakers, monitors, switches, routers, etc).

If they have passive sensors in them they do not require power in order to fully function and with phones having a battery they could potentially still record data even though you powered it off if there is still residual power running through any components that can record data (e.g. like a black box in cars and helicopters, boats and other vehicles).

[jammygit]

Purism is doing this: hardware kill switches

[techjuice]

I would prefer devices with true mechanical switches that control power, and are disconnect/cover recording capabilities to guarantee what is expected is actually happening.

[m463]

You imply that purism has software switches but I believe they are hardware switches.

My purism laptop has two hardware kill switches for camera and wifi. The switches remove the devices from the circuit.

[techjuice]

Nice that they are doing this, but this really should be standard for the majority of electrical devices you buy similar to high end receivers, speakers, microphones, amps, etc. with the powered on/off switch in the back. Once you flip it, there is zero power going through it until you flip it again. This was a huge savings with many high powered equipment that you needed to leave plugged in, but did not want it to drain unnecessary power while idling.