How to disable webcam on Windows 10

With the growing technology and its integration into our daily lives, new risks of privacy breach have grown immensely. Built-in camera in laptops helps connect with your kins using platforms like Skype and more. But they can easily invade your private life without one knowing it. The fact that we tend to easily give service permissions to applications makes us more vulnerable. The threat is so much so that even Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg covers webcam and microphone of his workdesk with a tape. Remember the image he shared in 2016 to celebrate Instagram’s 500 million monthly active users?

While few adopt non-technical ways like placing a tape on the webcam, there are more clean and technical methods to do so. In this how to, you will read how you can disable webcam on Windows 10 in few easy steps.

1.Open the Device Manager by press Windows+R to open the dialog box

2.Type devmgmt.msc in the dialog box

Alternatively, you can ask Cortana to open the device manager or simply use the Windows search box.

3.Search ‘Cameras’ or ‘Imaging devices’ under devices list in Device manager and click to expand. Here you will find - VGA WebCam/Integrated Camera/USB Camera or something similar.

4.Once you see either of the three camera names, right click on it.

5.Choose ‘Disable device’ and you are set to go. The webcam has been disabled on your laptop.

6.You can enable to back following the same steps and choosing ‘Enable device’.