Host process for windows tasks is using the webcam

Hi all... Update

I have Kaspersky internet security and it's that is displaying the report so If you have Kaspersky internet security that telling you the web cam is been used so this is what I did: -

Go to windows settings… Privacy… Camera…  then I turned off “Let apps use my camera hardware” and up to now it’s never reported web cam been used up to now after about 10 hours.

hope that helps us all.

regards

Stan.

ESET Internet Security suite reports this as well.

I also have the same problem. Windows 10 - HP Envy

But on my case its the ESET Internet Security who is giving the warning, so its the second anti-virus, blocking the executable from Microsoft?

Whats is all this spying about? Terrible

I experienced the same warning using ESET Internet Security - Microsoft wanting to 'phone home' with the webcam every time I started the computer after performing an upgrade.

As mentioned by someone here with an earlier post, the solution to stop this was to Open up Task Scheduler, navigate to Microsoft-Windows-Device Info and disable the task called 'Device'.

I looked into this further: Apparently it launches a program called devicecensus.exe

You can test this by manually running %windir%\system32\devicecensus.exe .... if what I'm saying is correct for you - and you still have your firewall enabled you will most likely get a popup within a second saying that a device attempted to access the webcam.

For some reason, Microsoft appears to be doing a census / survey on all our devices and hardware on a daily basis at 1am local time, otherwise it launches when the computer is next turned on.

The good news is that it seems as though it's not a virus or malware, and it's a "legit" application by Microsoft that's attempting to access the webcam.

The bad news is that Microsoft appears to be installing an ever increasing number of services or functionality into Windows that consistently monitors us and transmits data back to their servers.

According to the Windows Settings page for the camera, disallowing access to the camera by applications will NOT keep the Windows OS from accessing it.  Looks like you're using a band aid or a post-it.

According to the Windows Settings page for the camera, disallowing access to the camera by applications will NOT keep the Windows OS from accessing it.  Looks like you're using a band aid or a post-it.

Handy to know - thanks, but I never said change the windows setting to disallow access to the camera by applications - I mentioned disabling the Task scheduler.  :-)

However since another Windows update - I'm getting a warning prompt yet again, even with the scheduled task to launch devicecensus.exe disabled - so it looks like Windows have yet another process running attempting to access the camera. 

Seems that 3rd party firewall software is the only sure solution to stop Microsoft from accessing your camera.