Webcam temporarily activating on boot

Question

I have a Lenovo Ideapad 100 with Ubuntu 16.04 installed, but unfortunately when I start Ubuntu, the webcam starts and the led lights up. It stays on for about a minute or so, until I log on. Once I log on, and internet loads, my webcam turns off. I feel like this could be a privacy issue, because the webcam is active. Is this the case? How can I turn this off?

Answer 1

To get straight to the point, you have nothing to worry about. First of all, Ubuntu is not actually activating your webcam. Think of this light coming on as Ubuntu testing 2 things:

1. If your webcam is still connected to your motherboard, hardware wise, so it can tell whether or not to activate drivers or not

2. If your LED is working

Although it is utilizing the webcam and the LED light, you have no reason to worry about photos or videos being taken, so long as you stay safe on your computer.

Answer 2

Although I'm reassured here above, I would prefer the camera/ led light not to be switched on during startup for almost a minute. So if anyone would know a solution please let me know.

Answer 3

I find it unlikely that a hypothetical attack would activate your camera during every boot only to disable it again once you log into your user account. What would they gain from that incredibly arbitrary activation pattern? It's much more likely that the lit status light behaviour is an artefact of some device driver initialisation.

If you want to stay absolutely safe place a piece of opaque sticky tape over the camera lens. It's cheap and easy to remove, so many people do it even when they don't actually feel at risk of espionage.