Google will strictly restrict the app to see all installed application

Each version of the Android system will improve the permissions and privacy content. For example, in the latest version of the Android system, users can refuse certain permissions on the app as call logs, phone…

Key contents such as address books, short messages, and call records usually require user authorization. These contents involve very sensitive private information and should be protected.

However, there are also some permissions that developers can call and do not need to obtain the user’s consent, such as direct seeing all locally installed applications.

With this permission, any application can directly check all the apps installed by the user. Obviously, this has been abused and used by advertising networks to analyze and track users.

Maybe most users don’t care much about this permission, after all, it’s just installed applications, but in fact, which applications the user installs will reflect some of the user’s preferences.

“Google Android (Design by Gerwin Sturm)” by Origamiancy is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Some app built-in advertising components can collect this information and push similar applications, and even this permission may be used for spying purposes to analyze specific users.

For this reason, Google has updated its developer policy to strictly restrict the invocation of such permissions, and Google requires that this permission is not allowed to be invoked without actual usage requirements.

Google stated that it cannot be called unless permission is the core function of the app. The so-called core function means that it cannot be used normally if there is no permission.

For example, banking and financial apps are allowed to call such permissions, because these apps may check whether users install malicious apps for security purposes.

Google originally planned to enable this feature through remote updates at the beginning of this year, but for some reason, this feature has been postponed until May 5, 2021.

When the application is put on the Google Play Store, Google will check for such permission calls, and if it is an unnecessary call, it will directly refuse the application to be published to the store.

It is worth noting that this new Google policy may affect some tool applications, such as task management, application management, and cleaning tool applications.

These applications need to read all applications for management or clean up and uninstall operations, but it is not clear whether Google will also strictly restrict the calling permissions of such applications.

Via: 9to5google