These new smartphone cameras make spying on you as easy as point and shoot

Most smartphones come with decent cameras these days, complete with customizable modes, color filters, and basic zoom capabilities. However, recent advancements in camera zoom technology make it easier than ever for someone to spy on you or your family from afar, both in public spaces and from the comfort of your own home.

Hybrid zoom is here, and it’s everywhere

The cameras on most smartphones today feature two zoom technologies. Optical zoom uses the focal length of the camera lens to magnify a subject. In other words, it can only zoom in as far as the lens physically allows. Digital zoom expands the zoomable distance of the optical lens by cropping the image even closer. Although this neat software trick can dramatically increase the zoom distance on your phone, zooming in too far will make a photo grainy or blurry.

Innovations like hybrid zoom will continue to chip away at basic rights like personal privacy and security.

While zoom technology is nothing new, hybrid zoom is a newer concept that combines optical and digital zoom to produce more enhanced photos, and it’s sweeping through the smartphone market. For the first time, all three major phone manufacturers in the United States now make flagship phones that can snap photos and videos up to 40x-100x away, far beyond the standard 3x-5x zoom length found on most phones prior to 2020. Now that these devices are widely accessible, privacy and long-distance surveillance are major concerns that all Americans should keep in mind.

Pro Res Zoom on Pixel 10 ProKeynote slideshow by Zach Laidlaw

Watch out for these flagship phones with hybrid zoom

Samsung was the first to add “Space Zoom” to its Galaxy lineup back in 2020. You may have seen photos of Samsung users taking very detailed pictures of the moon, and although it was later confirmed that Samsung used AI to craft some of these images, Space Zoom is still effective at snapping close-up shots here on Earth. Even five years later, the latest Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra takes some of the most impressive zoomed-in photos, with up to 100x the lens focal length.

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Photo by Cheng Xin/ Getty Images

Google and Apple also joined the fray this year. The Google Pixel 10 Pro series received a telephoto lens with 100x “Pro Res Zoom” that’s further enhanced by AI to take incredible photos and video from far away. As for Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro series, these phones received the longest telephoto lens ever put into an iPhone, with up to 40x zoom capabilities.

While each phone has its drawbacks — Samsung Galaxy faked its moon photos, Google Pixel’s AI can sometimes distort a zoomed-in image, and Apple’s iPhone doesn’t get as close as its competitors — hybrid zoom is now a basic feature on all three major flagship devices.

Should you worry about hybrid zoom? Here’s what it does and doesn’t do.

Now that hybrid zoom is widely available, it’s easier than ever for someone to snap photos or videos of you from a distance, without your knowledge or permission. A stranger can see where you are and what you’re doing at any given moment.

Even worse, hybrid zoom is versatile — someone could use it to spy on you at a park, in the grocery store, or while driving your car, and it can even peek through the front window of your home. It has the power to breach your personal privacy almost everywhere.

Luckily, hybrid zoom doesn’t enhance the microphone on the host device. So while someone can photograph you from a distance, he can’t hear what you’re saying, unless he gets close.

Quick tips to protect yourself from hybrid zoom

Even if a stranger can’t hear you, he can learn a lot about you by taking photos and videos. Here are some quick tips to stay safe.

• Close your blinds and curtains, especially at night. No one can zoom into your window if it’s covered.
• Never leave your phone, tablet, or laptop on and unattended in public. Be especially careful when using privacy-sensitive apps, like banking, investments, etc.
• Always use biometrics (fingerprints or facial recognition) to log in to your devices and webpages. This way, no one can watch out for your passcode or login passwords.
• Don’t leave your credit card out on a table at a restaurant or anywhere it can be photographed.

Knowledge is power

As consumer technology evolves faster than ever, new innovations like hybrid zoom will continue to chip away at basic rights, like personal privacy and security. None of us can stop them from coming, but awareness makes it easier to keep you and your family safe on both sides of your front door.