The presence of cameras on our computers has made a significant impact on our lives. During the Covid pandemic, video calls played an essential role in supporting education, businesses, and personal relationships. With that being said, the camera can also expose a lot of your privacy when not managed correctly. There are a lot of apps and websites that may try to access our camera without your knowledge. To protect your privacy, you must learn how to turn your camera on and off.
This article will teach you how to enable or disable a camera in Windows 11.
How to completely enable or disable a camera
- Click the Start ⊞ button and select Settings ⚙.
- On the left sidebar find and go into Privacy & security.
- Scroll down on the right side to “App permissions” to find Camera and click it.
- Toggle Camera access to enable or disable the camera.
How to restrict access to camera for apps
To restrict access for all or certain apps follow the steps below:
- Click the Start ⊞ button and select Settings ⚙.
- On the left sidebar find and go into Privacy & security.
- Scroll down on the right side to “App permissions" and select Camera.
- Toggle Let apps access your camera to enable or disable app access.
- To restrict access to individual apps, click the drop down in Let apps access your camera to view all apps that have access to your camera.
- Choose your desired toggle settings for each item in the list.
How to enable or disable a camera device
For those who do not have issues with Windows or apps accessing the camera but still want to enable or disable the camera, this method allows you to enable or disable the camera device that is connected to your computer.
- Click the Start ⊞ button and select Settings ⚙.
- On the left sidebar find and go into Bluetooth & devices.
- In the list of devices, scroll down and click on Camera.
- A list of the camera devices connected to your system will appear. Click the one you want to enable or disable, then click the Enable or Disable option.
- A confirmation prompt will pop up. Click Yes to continue.
