How to Block Microphone & Camera Access for Websites on iPhone & iPad
Are you tired of seeing unwanted camera and microphone access pop-ups with certain websites on Safari for iPhone and iPad? Or maybe you just want to manually disable camera access for some websites due to privacy concerns? Fortunately, this is actually pretty easy to do with iOS and iPadOS.
People have become increasingly cautious when it comes to privacy these days, and for good reasons. With multiple privacy breach reports on major internet giants and tech companies, protecting your privacy and personal data should be of utmost importance. Similar to how iPhone and iPad apps request access to your camera and microphone, websites that you access via Safari may also sometimes request camera and microphone permissions to record audio/video feed for video calls or anything else really.
If you’re a privacy buff and you have security concerns with a website that you’re accessing, you may not want to give it access to your iPhone’s camera or microphone. Here, will be discussing exactly how you can block microphone and camera access for websites using Safari on iPhone and iPad.
How to Block Microphone & Camera Access for Websites on iPhone & iPad
Whether you want to stop permission pop-ups or you just have privacy concerns, blocking camera and microphone access is actually pretty straightforward. This can be done by going to the website settings from Safari on iPhone or iPad. Just follow the steps below.
- First of all, launch Safari from the home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
- Now, head over to the website you want to block camera and microphone permissions for and tap on the “aA” icon located next to the address bar.
- Next, choose “Website Settings” from the pop-up menu as shown in the screenshot below.
- This will take you to the settings menu for the current website. Tap on “Camera” to expand the options.
- Now, select “Deny” to change and block the camera permissions.
- Similarly, tap on “Microphone” to expand the options and select “Deny”. Once you’ve changed the permissions, tap on “Done” to save your website settings.
That’s all you need to do to completely disable camera and microphone access for a specific website.
You can repeat the above steps to block your iPhone’s camera and microphone for all the other websites that you have security concerns with. You can even block location access from the same menu if you’re worried that a website is tracking your location data (and remember you can also block and manage location data access per app too).
It’s worth pointing out that Safari doesn’t let any website access your iPhone’s camera, microphone, or location by default. First, you get a pop-up, and unless you accidentally or intentionally gave it perms, the website won’t have access to your camera or microphone. However, completing these steps should also block unnecessary pop-ups for camera and microphone access.
Safari on the latest versions of iOS and iPadOS takes privacy very seriously. Apple has added a new Privacy Report feature that displays all the website trackers that have been blocked by Safari using DuckDuckGo’s tracker radar database. Safari also has a built-in password monitoring feature as part of iCloud Keychain to make sure that you’re not using a duplicate or breached password.
Were you able to block websites from accessing your iPhone or iPad’s camera and microphone? What are your thoughts on these specific website settings? Have you taken advantage of Safari’s new privacy features in the latest iOS and iPadOS versions? Share any relevant experiences, opinions, thoughts, or tips in the comments below.
And don’t miss our many other privacy oriented tips and tricks too!
