![60% of People Cover Their Webcam [2026 Data]](/_astro/what-percentage-of-people-cover-their-webcams.DgPZ7wd6_1Tayel.webp)
60% of US laptop owners physically cover their webcam, according to HP's Webcam Security Survey, conducted by Edelman Intelligence in May-June 2019 among more than 3,000 North American laptop owners. That is the most recent large, named survey to measure the behavior directly, and a comparable YouGov poll from the same year found a lower but still substantial 40% doing the same in the UK. Both surveys point to the same underlying driver: most people who cover their webcam do it because they are aware it can be hacked, not because of one specific incident.
What percentage of Americans cover their webcam?
HP's Webcam Security Survey interviewed over 3,000 laptop owners aged 18 and older with an internal webcam, split evenly across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with fieldwork run by the market research firm Edelman Intelligence between May and June 2019. Among the US respondents, 6 in 10, 60%, said they physically cover their laptop's webcam to feel more secure or to prevent it from being compromised.
The survey also found a gender gap in the underlying worry driving that behavior. 67% of women said they were worried about their privacy being compromised via their laptop webcam, against 59% of men, and 77% of women said they would turn off, close, or cover their webcam to get out of view compared with 72% of men.
| Metric | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Worried about privacy being compromised via webcam | 67% | 59% |
| Would turn off, close, or cover webcam to get out of view | 77% | 72% |
| Uncomfortable working out in front of PC webcam | 65% | 46% |
Source: HP Webcam Security Survey (Edelman Intelligence, May-June 2019), US data.
Figure 1: Respondents could pick more than one method, so the figures do not sum to 100%. Source: HP Webcam Security Survey, 2019.
Tape is the simplest and cheapest option, which likely explains why it beats the other two methods by a wide margin. Even so, 79% of the people HP surveyed said they wished their laptop had a physical switch built in to turn the webcam off entirely, rather than relying on tape or a sticky note.
How does webcam covering compare in the UK?
A separate YouGov poll, published 21 February 2019, asked British computer and laptop owners the same basic question and found a lower share doing it: 40% of those with a webcam cover it up, with 21% keeping it blocked permanently and 18% covering it only occasionally. YouGov's article does not disclose a sample size for this specific question, so treat the 40% figure as directionally solid rather than as precise as HP's disclosed 3,000-plus respondent count.
| Country | Share who cover webcam | Breakdown | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 60% | Physically cover (any method) | HP Webcam Security Survey | 2019 |
| United Kingdom | 40% | 21% permanent, 18% occasional | YouGov | 2019 |
One detail from the YouGov poll stands out: covering a webcam is not purely a rational response to a stated belief about corporate surveillance. Among respondents who said they do not think tech companies record personal data without consent, one in four, 25%, still cover their webcam anyway. The habit has become a default privacy reflex for a meaningful share of people independent of whether they can articulate a specific threat.
Figure 2: Four in ten UK computer owners cover their webcam in some form. Source: YouGov, published 21 February 2019.
Which generation is most likely to cover their webcam?
Younger laptop owners are more likely to cover their webcam than older ones, even though older generations report growing up with more caution about strangers online. HP's 2019 survey broke this down by age group among US respondents.
| Generation | Share who cover webcam |
|---|---|
| Generation Z | 69% |
| Millennials | 61% |
| Generation X | 58% |
| Baby Boomers | 49% |
Source: HP Webcam Security Survey, 2019.
Figure 3: Gen Z respondents cover their webcam at a rate 20 percentage points higher than Baby Boomers. Source: HP Webcam Security Survey, 2019.
HP's own reporting on the survey flags Gen Z as "the most conscious of webcam hacking" among the generations sampled, which lines up with a cohort that grew up doing more of its socializing, schooling, and video calling on camera by default, giving it more day-to-day reason to think about who else might be watching.
Why do people cover their webcams?
Awareness of the risk, not a personal hacking experience, is the main driver. 79% of the US laptop owners HP surveyed said they are aware their privacy can be hacked via webcam, and a smaller but still notable 1 in 10 said they had either experienced webcam hacking themselves or knew someone who had.
Figure 4: Awareness of the risk, not a confirmed personal hack, is what drives most people to cover their webcam. Source: HP Webcam Security Survey, 2019.
That awareness did not appear out of nowhere. Remote access trojans, malware that lets an attacker quietly activate a victim's webcam without triggering the indicator light, have been a documented threat for well over a decade, and a string of public incidents kept the risk in the news well before HP or YouGov ran their surveys.
The FBI's December 2024 Private Industry Notification on HiatusRAT is the most recent example, warning that actors were scanning internet-connected web cameras and DVRs, particularly Chinese-branded models from Hikvision and Xiongmai, across the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. That alert covers external, network-connected cameras rather than built-in laptop webcams specifically, but it lands in the same category of threat that HP's respondents said they were worried about: a camera being accessed by someone who was never granted access.
How did webcam covering become a common privacy habit?
Webcam covering did not start as a survey statistic. It grew out of a decade of public incidents, each one giving the habit more mainstream credibility.
Figure 5: A string of public spying cases and law enforcement actions turned webcam covering from a fringe habit into a survey-measured majority behavior. Sources: CBS News (2010); FTC (2014); DOJ SDNY and Wikipedia's summary of the Blackshades case (2014); NPR (2016); ABC News (2016); HP Webcam Security Survey (2019); YouGov (2019); FBI Private Industry Notification (2024).
The Lower Merion School District case is the earliest of these to draw national attention: a Pennsylvania school district issued laptops to roughly 2,300 students with software that could remotely activate the webcam, and it was later found to have taken more than 700 photos and screenshots without students' or parents' knowledge, leading to a $610,000 settlement in 2010. Four years later, the FTC settled with Aaron's Inc. over franchisees that had installed spyware, including webcam-based photo capture, on rent-to-own laptops, and the DOJ separately charged the creators and distributors of Blackshades, malware built specifically to give an attacker remote webcam access, in an operation that led to almost 100 arrests across 19 countries. By 2016, the practice had reached the country's top law enforcement official: FBI Director James Comey told an audience at Kenyon College that he puts tape over his own webcam, and a photo posted by Mark Zuckerberg that same year showed the same fix on his own laptop.
The Bottom Line
60% of US laptop owners and 40% of UK computer owners already cover their webcam, according to the two most recent large, named surveys on the behavior, both from 2019. The habit is not a niche paranoia: it spans every generation HP measured, it holds even among people who do not believe companies are actively watching them, and it traces back to a decade of real, documented spying cases rather than internet folklore. If your website, app, or device asks users to enable a camera at any point, for video calls, identity verification, or biometric login, that same awareness applies to how you disclose it. A privacy policy generator can spell out exactly when and why a camera is accessed, what is recorded, and how long footage is kept, which is the kind of clear disclosure that turns a suspicious permission request into a reasonable one.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of people cover their webcam? 60% of US laptop owners physically cover their webcam, according to HP's Webcam Security Survey conducted with Edelman Intelligence in May-June 2019 across more than 3,000 North American laptop owners. In the UK, a separate YouGov poll from February 2019 found a lower 40% doing the same.
Why do people cover their webcam? 79% of surveyed US laptop owners said they are aware their webcam could be hacked, and 1 in 10 said they had personally experienced webcam hacking or knew someone who had, per HP's 2019 survey. High-profile incidents, including the FBI's December 2024 warning about HiatusRAT malware scanning internet-connected cameras, keep reinforcing the concern.
What do people use to cover their webcam? Tape is the most common method, used by 46% of people who cover their webcam, followed by a sticky note at 35% and a piece of paper at 32%, per HP's 2019 survey. 79% said they wished their laptop had a built-in physical switch instead.
Does webcam covering vary by age? Yes. 69% of Gen Z laptop owners cover their webcam versus 49% of Baby Boomers, with Millennials at 61% and Gen X at 58%, according to HP's 2019 Webcam Security Survey.
Where the Numbers Come From
- HP Inc.. (2019). "Webcam Security Survey." Conducted by Edelman Intelligence, May-June 2019, across 3,000-plus laptop owners aged 18-plus in the US, Canada, and Mexico (1,000 per country); US data cited throughout. 60% physically cover their webcam; methods: tape 46%, sticky note 35%, paper 32%; 79% wish for a physical switch; 79% aware of hacking risk; generational and gender breakdowns.
- YouGov. (2019). "Four in Ten Brits Cover Up Their Webcam to Thwart Spies." Published 21 February 2019. 40% of UK computer owners with a webcam cover it (21% permanently, 18% occasionally); sample size not disclosed in the article; 25% of respondents who doubt corporate surveillance still cover their webcam.
- CBS News Philadelphia. "Lower Merion School District Settles Webcam Spy Suit." $610,000 settlement over school-issued laptops that secretly captured more than 700 webcam photos and screenshots of students, 2009-2010 school year.
- Federal Trade Commission. (2014). "FTC Approves Final Order Settling Charges Against Aaron's, Inc." Final order approved March 2014 over franchisees installing webcam-based monitoring spyware on rent-to-own computers.
- US Department of Justice, Southern District of New York. (2014). Charges announced May 19, 2014 against Blackshades remote access trojan developers and distributors; malware included webcam-spying capability. Almost 100 people were arrested across 19 countries in the coordinated operation, per contemporaneous reporting.
- NPR. (2016). "Why The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam." Published April 8, 2016, following remarks by then-FBI Director James Comey at Kenyon College.
- ABC News. (2016). "Mark Zuckerberg Puts Tape Over His Webcam." Published June 22, 2016.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cyber Division. (2024). "HiatusRAT Actors Targeting Web Cameras and DVRs." Private Industry Notification, 16 December 2024, coordinated with CISA, covering a March 2024 scanning campaign against internet-connected cameras and DVRs in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK.
Note: All figures verified as of July 2026. HP's and YouGov's 2019 surveys remain the most recent large, named surveys measuring what share of people physically cover their webcam; no larger benchmark survey specifically on this behavior has been published since, so treat the 60% and 40% figures as a durable but aging baseline rather than a real-time read. This post is checked at least twice a year for a fresher named survey and will be updated the moment one is published.
