It’s probably just a simple HTML tel link that is supposed to open a phone app so that you don’t need to dial. But macOS and iOS opens these links with FaceTime if that is configured as your standard “phone” app. So it’s not the website that opens an app with camera permission, it’s the OS.

This can be quite annoying for web developers because HTML alone cannot prevent FaceTime from being opened instead of a normal phone app, as the OS dictates what happens when a tel link is clicked. This can easily give the impression that the camera is being accessed illegitimately, even if this is not actually intended. That’s probably the case here. I can’t imagine anyone expecting their customers to book a table in a restaurant via video call - that would be stupid on many levels.

I’m always impressed by how little understanding businesses have for basic online stuff, even when it’s very important to their business.

Life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough.

How time flies. Sorry to break it to you, but Disaster Girl is now 24 and apparently working as a Smart Cities & IoT Analyst at S&P Global. Somehow even Side-Eyeing Chloe is 13 by now…