Google Removes New Android Privacy Feature, Says It Was an Accident

Yesterday , we published a blog postlauding an extremely of import app privacy feature film that was added in Android 4.3 . That featureallows usersto install apps while preventing the app from collecting sore data like the exploiter ’s location or speech leger .

https://gizmodo.com/the-awesome-privacy-tools-in-android-4-3-1481775527

After we published the berth , several people contact us to say that the feature had actually been remove in Android 4.4.2 , which was free earlier this hebdomad . Today , we installed that update to our exam gimmick , and can confirm that the App Ops privacy feature that we were aroused about yesterday is in fact now gone .

Hostinger Coupon Code 15% Off

When asked for remark , Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental , and that it could break some of the apps policed by it . We are suspicious of this account , and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.¹

The fade of App Ops is alarm news for Android substance abuser . The fact that they can not turn off app permissions is a Stygian hole in the Android security model , and a billion people ’s data is being suck in through . Embarrassingly , it is also one that Apple managed to specify in Io years ago .

A second ago , it see as though Google care about this monumental privacy trouble . Now we have our doubts . The only fashion to chase away them , frankly , is for Google to urgently reenable the App Ops interface , as well as adding some polish and make out the fundamental pieces that it is pretermit :

Burning Blade Tavern Epic Universe

Android user should be able-bodied to disable all assembling of trackable identifier by an app with a undivided permutation , including data like earphone numbers , IMEIs , information about the user ’s accounts .

There should be a style to invalid an app ’s meshwork access totally . It is clear that a orotund fraction of apps ( including flashlight , wallpapers , UI skins , many games ) merely do n’t require net access and , as we saw last hebdomad , are prostrate to abuse it .

The App Ops interface needs to be smooth out an properly integrated into the main group O user interface , including the configurations->Apps menus and the Play Store . There are legion way to make App Ops piece of work for developer . Pick one , and deploy it .

Ideapad3i

In the mean time , we ’re not certain what to say to Android users . If app privateness is especially important to you — if , for representative , you want to be able to install an app like Shazam or Skype or Brightest Flashlight without giving it license to know your emplacement — we would have to advise you not to accept the update to 4.4.2 . But this is also a catastrophic situation , because the update to Android 4.4.2 containsfixes to security and self-renunciation - of - service bugs . So , for the time being , user will involve to chose between either privacy or protection on the Android gadget , but not both .

Google , the veracious thing to do here is obvious .

¹ – Many representative of apps “ breaking ” when they are denied the ability to collect data like a emplacement or an address book or an IMEI number can easily be fixed by , for instance , giving them back a fake emplacement , an empty address book , or an IMEI number of all zeroes . instead , Google could document for developers that these API call may fail for privacy reasons . A well hybrid would be to use fake data for honest-to-god versions of the Android API and flawlessly defined Java exceptions in the nextAPI level . As with many other changes that occur across Android gadget and Android versions , some app developers might have to do minor updates to keep up .

Last Of Us 7 Interview