- Unplug your webcam: If you use a external webcamYou can simply unplug the USB cable from your computer when you are not using it.
- Turn it off in UEFI or BIOS: If your laptop has a built-in webcam that you are not using, you can boot into the UEFI firmware setup screen; This is the modern replacement for the traditional BIOS setup screen. You can start in this interface from Windows recovery menu. From here, you can usually find an option to disable the webcam. It won’t work again until someone resets this screen and activates it again; That’s an inconvenience if you use the webcam frequently, but it’s a nice privacy improvement if you never do.
- Tape or cover your webcam: The traditional method of covering your laptop webcam with duct tape or some other type of cover still works! He became very famous when Mark Zuckerberg revealed that he records his webcam in 2016. Now, most of us aren’t billionaires, and Zuckerberg certainly faces privacy threats that most people don’t. But even this low-tech solution works for you. (Nowadays, you’d expect Zuckerberg to have a modern laptop with a built-in webcam privacy cover or log out!)
By the way, you’ll also find options to turn off your webcam in Settings > Privacy and security > Camera in Windows 11 and Settings > Privacy > Camera in Windows 10. You can use these options if you want, but don’t rely on them: as it says itself interface in Windows 11, “Some desktop apps may not appear on this page or may be affected by these settings.”
As with the list of apps that have recently accessed your webcam, traditional Windows desktop apps could bypass this setting even if you turn off the microphone, and the most dangerous malware apps are likely designed to do so. If you are concerned about privacy, it is much better to physically cover or disconnect the webcam, or at least disable it at a low level in your system’s UEFI settings.
Wait, what’s up with microphone privacy?
There’s a huge elephant in this room here: microphones. Laptops have built-in microphones. Those microphones have no status LEDs and there are no physical switches to turn them off.
Imagine a conference room full of laptops with great webcam privacy solutions – each laptop has its shade closed. Malware running on any of those laptops could still listen. Of course, that would require at least one of those laptops to be infected with malware, and malware on a laptop could capture all kinds of sensitive information, from passwords and payment details to sensitive correspondence.
