Chrome 116 adds ‘Allow this time’ option for sites accessing your camera, mic and location

Chrome 116 drops later this month, and Google is introducing a new feature called “Allow this time,” aimed at giving you more control over your privacy. Initially shown off in the Chrome Developers blog, this will let you grant temporary access to sites that request your location or access to your camera or microphone.

Previously, you only had the option to permanently allow or deny permissions for each site and if you wanted to change these settings, you’d have to manually go to Chrome’s settings and do so. Currently, “Allow this time” will only show up on desktop Chrome. The mobile version will remain as is, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect this update to make its way to your phone in the future.

Google says it wants to give you “greater clarity” about the fact that the previous “Allow” option was not temporary like the new “Allow this time” one is. While it may have been obvious to some, not everyone is a security expert, so it was a great idea to simplify this.

The one-time permissions expire under the following conditions:

1. When the web page is closed
2. If you leave the page idle and don’t interact with it for 5 minutes (certain permissions, if allowed, can still run in the background)
3. After 16 hours have passed since the permission was first granted, even if you interact with the page
4. If you manually revoke the permissions through the settings menu or Omnibox