How do you know when your camera or microphone are active? Many phones will show an LED indicator when the camera or microphone are active. Call me paranoid but I don’t trust that the camera or microphone couldn’t be activated without notification. If you see a person with tape covering the camera of their phone then they might be a fellow security minded patriot.
Instead of putting tape on your phone there is another solution. I use an application called Vigilante to monitor and notify me if the camera, microphone, or location tracking is turned on. Now I can have some peace of mind knowing that if an application tries to activate one of these features I will know. If you still don’t feel comfortable without the tape then keep rockin’ it. Although, I would suggest some different color tape to make it look interesting.
You can find Vigilante on the F-Droid app. If you are unfamiliar with F-Droid it is the Open Source equivalent of the Google Play Store. F-Droid is installed on all Patriot Phones to provide an interface for finding and installing applications. Direct link to Vigilante on F-Droid.
Once the application is installed then it will start working. You don’t need to do anything special with the configuration unless you want to play around. Try opening your camera after installation; if you see a notification on your screen then you know it is working correctly. Just like any security solution this is just part of the total package. When combined with a secure operating system and other security apps it creates a solution that is more than the sum of their parts.