Edge accessed my camera

I mentioned this on another thread and it freaked me out! A new install of Windows 11. As usual, I turned off all the things I didn't want in settings. My antivirus popped up at some point and said "Edge has just accessed your camera". I checked my camera settings again and had most things turned off but Edge wasn't there to turn off. Google told me the setting is in Edge itself and you can set it to "Ask before using". I don't normally use Edge so not too familiar with the settings, but found it and it was already set to "Ask before using". Well it didn't ask! So I set it to "block"

Why was Edge accessing my camera when I was just sitting doing nothing in particular on the computer?

I also used to really like doing clean installs on Windows 10. With Windows 11 there are just far too many time consuming fiddly settings to change. For reasons mentioned elsewhere, I actually clean installed Windows 10 and then upgraded it to 11. I think that is a quicker way to do things actually, as I turned off all my background apps in less than a minute in Windows 10. And the settings remained as I had set them (ie "never") after the upgrade to 11. Whereas in 11 it takes me a good 20 tedious minutes to manually turn off all the background apps.

That is a security concern to which my response is to Disable the camera in Device Manager and/or to put a small sticky thing such as a stamp over the lens on the edge of the display panel. Same for the microphone.

Thanks. So if I disable the camera in device settings and, say want, to do a zoom call, will it manually activate the camera then or will I need to change the settings again? Agree it's a security thing but I didn't expect EDGE to surreptitiously use it! I wasn't even using Edge.

Hazel123 said:

"Edge has just accessed your camera"

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Is your mic integrated with your camera?
Could be it just wants to use your mic for spoken dialog.

It didn't mention the mic. Just said Edge just accessed your camera. I wasn't using anything at the time, just sorting out my task bar I think.

Hazel123 said:

Thanks. So if I disable the camera in device settings and, say want, to do a zoom call, will it manually activate the camera then or will I need to change the settings again? Agree it's a security thing but I didn't expect EDGE to surreptitiously use it! I wasn't even using Edge.

Click to expand...

You'd have to go back into Device Manager to Enable it each time. And Edge usually is running in the background.

I'll disable it then - I rarely do zoom calls and will just have to remember to turn it on again. There is no privacy flap on this laptop camera and peeling a bit of sticky tape on and off regularly doesn't appeal

Hazel123 said:

I'll disable it then - I rarely do zoom calls and will just have to remember to turn it on again. There is no privacy flap on this laptop camera and peeling a bit of sticky tape on and off regularly doesn't appeal

Click to expand...

You can "make" a privacy flap.
Just get a little circle of cardboard, and use some tape for the hinge.

Sorry I didn't realise you meant disable it in device manager. I meant just turn it off in settings. At the moment in settings, I have now turned off everything including "desktop apps" except "camera". And the same for audio. Presumably that means I can opt to use the camera for something manually? Eg a zoom call or to take a photo?

Ghot said:

You can "make" a privacy flap.
Just get a little circle of cardboard, and use some tape for the hinge.

Click to expand...

Looks like a privacy flap is going to be easier than turning off settings and working out what does what!

This is what I use on my laptops. Amazon.com : laptop camera cover slide

Tin foil hat mode ...
- Start > (no clicks, just start typing) Control Panel > click Control panel > v Device Manager > v Camera (to expand) > right click camera entry > Disable device
and
- Settings > search "camera" > Privacy and Security - Camera > slide all switches to OFF
and
- browser settings e.g. Edge > Settings > Cookies and Site Permissions > Camera > slide switch to OFF (all browsers have a similar option)

And then for good measure ...
- black electrical tape over the camera lens

And of course, if/when you want to use the camera all these processes have to be reversed .. the price of privacy.

EDIT Depending on your malware software, a lot of 3rd party malware programs have capacity for settings to block camera access

Winuser said:

This is what I use on my laptops. Amazon.com : laptop camera cover slide

Click to expand...

Brilliant thank you

idgat said:

Tin foil hat mode ...
- Start > (no clicks, just start typing) Control Panel > click Control panel > v Device Manager > v Camera (to expand) > right click camera entry > Disable device
and
- Settings > search "camera" > Privacy and Security - Camera > slide all switches to OFF
and
- browser settings e.g. Edge > Settings > Cookies and Site Permissions > Camera > slide switch to OFF (all browsers have a similar option)

And then for good measure ...
- black electrical tape over the camera lens

And of course, if/when you want to use the camera all these processes have to be reversed .. the price of privacy.

EDIT Depending on your malware software, a lot of 3rd party malware programs have capacity for settings to block camera access

Click to expand...

Thanks - I’ll look at the settings on the av - so far it just annoyingly told me something had accessed the camera rather than saying do you want to stop it accessing the camera!

Hazel123 said:

Brilliant thank you

Click to expand...

You're Welcome.