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Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

pcmag.com

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Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#131

Post by never_inline »

mrbungie wrote: post #122
patch_cable wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regretfully, it seems on iOS apps can tell they’ve been given access to only specific photos. Googles Photo app refuses to work unless it gets access to all photos.

I think it's a good design decision that just lacks control during the app review process. There are apps that need full access to your photo gallery to be really useful (i.e. where limited pool of photos may have little sense in those contexts), photo deduplication apps being a case on point. At least that piece of information gives the app a chance to tell the user that it may not work as expected. Now, if an app m…

I am the user, and if I allow only Screenshot and Whatsapp images folder to be accessed by your deduplication app, I want it to work on these 2 folders only, without accessing my camera. Same for lets say backup app.

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#132

Post by hakre »

mrbungie wrote: post #122
patch_cable wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regretfully, it seems on iOS apps can tell they’ve been given access to only specific photos. Googles Photo app refuses to work unless it gets access to all photos.

I think it's a good design decision that just lacks control during the app review process. There are apps that need full access to your photo gallery to be really useful (i.e. where limited pool of photos may have little sense in those contexts), photo deduplication apps being a case on point. At least that piece of information gives the app a chance to tell the user that it may not work as expected. Now, if an app m…

YMMV, but IMHO it is preferable that the fundamental execution model of the app stays in control of the app-executing user and should not be affected or be dependent on the app review process. Rationale is to prevent single point of failures, especially those that are out of control of the user (compare with the emergency off switch on some bigger machinery).

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#133

Post by hakre »

actionablefiber wrote: post #108
patch_cable wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regretfully, it seems on iOS apps can tell they’ve been given access to only specific photos. Googles Photo app refuses to work unless it gets access to all photos.

WeChat will loudly grumble every time you try to send a photo if you haven't given access to all photos. But at least it works.

And if you tell me now, that it works without having access to contacts, its lightyears ahead of WhatsApp.

But still, these moaning dialogs aren't trust-building. I wish there would be better guidance with UX in the industry.

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#134

Post by hakre »

copper-float wrote: post #76
hakre wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally there should be a sandbox mode. While you give the app access to Photos and Contacts, it's an actual sandbox not containing any photo nor any contact. So the app gets what it asks for (the permission) while the user can still control the data.

GrapheneOS supports this with a feature called Storage Scopes. Instead of giving an app access to your entire photo library and files, you can limit its scope to an individual folder of your choice. That way the app still gets the permissions it asked for, but they're specifically what you want it to see.

> GrapheneOS supports this with a feature called Storage Scopes

Thanks for the pointer, adding the missing reference: https://grapheneos.org/features#storage-scopes

This looks pretty interesting (and there's more GrapheneOS has to offer):

> GrapheneOS provides Storage Scopes as a fully compatible alternative to the standard Android storage permissions. Instead of granting storage permissions, users can enable Storage Scopes to make the app assume that it has all storage permissions that it asked for. On Android, an app that doesn't have any storage permissions is still allowed to create files and directories, and is allowed to access the files that it created. Users can optionally add files and directories as storage scopes to permit the app to access files created by other apps.

This comes pretty close to what I imagined, thanks a lot for providing this living example!

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#135

Post by MrDresden »

amluto wrote: post #91
newZWhoDis wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me neither, but the banks are probably selling all your data to the same clearinghouses anyways… we need banking secrecy laws like the Swiss used to have, AML be damned

Your bank may well sell your personal data. The app you “connect” to it can take your money . Choose your poison.

> Your bank may well sell your personal data.

Depends on the laws in each country. At least in most if not all EU regulated countries, this would be a huge no no.

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#136

Post by blokey »

KORraN wrote: post #128
charrondev wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how photos access on iOS works. An app can ask for access to photos and you can choose 3 options: - no photos - only specific photos (the system picker will appear to select them) - all photos

I'm not sure, if it works as advertised. I've been playing with one of the apps and despite selecting "No photos" option, I was still able to upload photos from my gallery. Perhaps some metadata is not shared in this case, but photos definitely were accessible.

There are two APIs in iOS for the photo browser, the API where the app gets access to your photos so it can draw the list view of “all the pictures” is gated with the permission.

The newer API that pops up a system control that lets you select a photo (or more) and only then if you select one, it returns that picture (only) to the application, that API does not need permission, because unless you select a photo, the app does not have access to anything.

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#137

Post by KORraN »

blokey wrote: post #136
KORraN wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, if it works as advertised. I've been playing with one of the apps and despite selecting "No photos" option, I was still able to upload photos from my gallery. Perhaps some metadata is not shared in this case, but photos definitely were accessible.

There are two APIs in iOS for the photo browser, the API where the app gets access to your photos so it can draw the list view of “all the pictures” is gated with the permission. The newer API that pops up a system control that lets you select a photo (or more) and only then if you select one, it returns that picture (only) to the application, that API does not need permission, because unless you select a photo, the…

Yes, you are right, thank you. After I have posted my comment, I started reading about PHPickerViewController and it totally makes sense.

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#139

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

josephcsible wrote: post #6

This feels like treating one particularly visible symptom of the problem instead of fixing the actual problem. What Google should do instead is prevent apps from refusing to work or disabling unrelated functionality just because some permissions are denied (e.g., if you deny your banking app permission to access your camera, everything but mobile check deposit should still have to work). They should use a two-pronged…

Android has this issue.

There is the new permissions for locations. Accurate and not so accurate.

Apps are told that "you are given coarse location" so they refuse to work.

Same for contacts. I refuse to use truecaller because it "requires" contacts access. I don't want it so I am at an impasse.

Permissions should be transparent. As you said, if the user decides on system level to disable location, apps should be told "no signal" or "no location for now, carry on"

Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts

#140

Post by saagarjha »

isametry wrote: post #37
20after4 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS already has this feature precisely. I can either grant access to all photos or only a selected subset, or even just one.

Yes, or better yet, UIimagePickerController [0]. It’s a hook for the system’s built-in image picker sheet — as such, it allows the user to browse their entire library, however the the app only gets (one-time) access to the individual piece of content they pick. Nice thing is that the app doesn’t need to ask any photo permissions at all (as far as read access is concerned). With some exceptions like Messages, which pr…

Apple recommends PHPickerViewController for this use.
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