Edward Snowden once revealed that the NSA’s Optic Nerve Operation had actually used webcams to capture images of around 1.8 million users on Yahoo and stored it on a government server.

That revelation came in 2008 so add to that eight years of technological advancement and you never know what hackers are up to these days. Long story short, your private life is not as private as you think it is. Well, most of us will argue why someone would bother spying on us, but the very thought is not too comforting.

So what can you do to prevent it? 

Well, for starters, FBI Director James Comey suggests you should put tapes on your webcams & mics.

Yup, as weird as it sounds, that actually is a suggestion.

Even Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo where his laptop in the background clearly showed he had put tape on his webcam & mic (Gizmodo confirmed this).

This is what Comey had to say:

“I saw something in the news, so I copied it. I put a piece of tape — I have obviously a laptop, personal laptop — I put a piece of tape over the camera. Because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera,” he said.

He added that it is common practice for the FBI and government officials to cover their webcams.

This isn’t something we pay attention to, but if the likes of the FBI and Facebook are doing it, putting a piece of tape on a webcam does not require much effort and we should be doing it. 

While many may argue that with today’s technology, there are other ways that people can spy on us, we should do what we can to keep our privacy and security in check.