VirtualBox accesses host's USB webcam with VM's virtual USB controller disabled

[parsifal]

As per title. Every time I start a VM my webcam is being accessed, as evidenced by a blue LED lighting up on the webcam. The LED stays lit for the complete duration of the VM session and switches off when the VM is powered off.

I am running VirtualBox 3.0.10 on Windows 7 Professional x64. The guest is Ubuntu Linux 9.10 x86 but I do not think that it makes any difference since the webcam's LED lights up immediately after starting the VM, before the guest's code kicks in. The webcam in question is a Hercules/Guillemot Dualpix Exchange: ​http://www.hercules.com/us/webcam/bdd/p/21/hercules-dualpix-exchange/

Another piece of info which may be noteworthy is that I noticed the same behavior on and off with some past VirtualBox builds on a (then) Vista x64 host. For example, versions 3.0.8 and 3.0.6 did not exhibit this behavior, but some older builds did.

I am attaching a log from a minimal run of the VM (boot, login screen, poweroff).

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.