After Android, Google plans to bring system-wide privacy toggles for camera and microphone access on ChromeOS. This new feature was spotted by 9To5Google in a new beta version of ChromeOS, which means that it can now be used on all Samsung Chromebooks running a beta version of ChromeOS.
A new section appears in ChromeOS’ Settings menu when you navigate to Security and Privacy » Privacy controls. You can find toggles for Camera Access and Microphone Access. Moreover, the operating system even notes if it is a front camera or an internal microphone that’s being enabled or disabled. When these toggles are turned off, and if an app or website requests access to the camera, you will get a system notification to turn on camera access. When you allow it, it would open camera access to all apps and websites that have the camera and microphone permissions enabled.
Google says that camera and microphone privacy toggles will be released via the stable ChromeOS version later this year. You can already use these features if you’re using the latest beta version of Chrome OS on your Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. It would be even better if Google brought quick setting toggles for these features in future versions of ChromeOS.
Google is increasingly bringing Android features to ChromeOS. It has also enabled the option to stream apps from your Android smartphone to your ChromeOS laptop. Other features include Material You design, Google Assistant, Smart Lock, Nearby Share, and Instant Tethering (using the phone’s cellular data via a Wi-Fi hotspot).
