The Hardware Interception
Modern laptops and 2-in-1 tablets feature internal hardware sensors, such as accelerometers (to detect motion and orientation) and ambient light sensors (to detect room brightness). When you visit advanced web applications in Google Chrome, the website’s Javascript will occasionally attempt to tap into these physical sensors to rotate a 3D model or automatically trigger a dark mode. Chrome intercepts this and throws a prompt asking, “Allow access to motion and light sensors?” While technically useful for specific web apps, allowing random websites to poll your physical hardware is a privacy risk. You must instruct Chrome to enforce an absolute ban on all sensor requests.
How to Turn Off Sensor Prompts
You can permanently revoke the browser’s permission to bridge your internal hardware via the site settings.
- Open the Google Chrome desktop browser.
- Click the three vertical dots (⋮) in the top right corner and select Settings.
- In the left-hand sidebar, click on Privacy and security.
- In the main window, click on Site settings.
- Scroll down and click on Additional permissions to expand the hidden menu.
- Click on Sensors (or “Motion or light sensors”).
- At the very top of the screen, under “Default behavior,” select the radio button next to “Don’t allow sites to use your device’s motion or light sensors.”
A Secured Chassis
The change is instantaneous. If any website attempts to execute a script to poll your laptop’s accelerometer or light sensor, Google Chrome will immediately and silently terminate the request in the background. The browser will never again interrupt your workflow with a pop-up prompt asking for hardware access, ensuring that websites cannot track how you are physically holding or moving your device.