[krisives]

Even HTML5 web capturing works in a similar way. Once you give an site like Discord access to your microphone or screen it can pretty much access it whenever the page is open - granted it will show a little badge on screen by default.

A lot of users got tired of the on-screen badge being on all the time and probably set it to hidden (very easy to do) so not everyone is actually aware of when an HTML5 application is accessing a microphone/camera/screen.

[microtonal]

A small aside: on the Mac, Micro Snitch [1] can let you know about any app that accesses the mic or webcam. It can use overlays, notifications, and/or just the systray to indicate that an app is using the mic/webcam. It also has an activity log that can you show past use.

[1] https://www.obdev.at/products/microsnitch/index.html