Off topic of the lending apps but something I have long wanted to see is actual information about the data accessed by these apps. Maybe Android has this, but on iOS I can go into privacy and easily see what apps have access to what data (and easily revoke that permission). But I don't see any kinds of metrics that would indicate that an app is possibly abusing that permission. For example, it would be awesome if I c…
Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
21–30 of 165 posts
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#22This 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…
> 2. Make Android present convincing fake data to apps when permissions are denied What about apps that aren't malicious? How can they tell the difference between a user who denied the permission to reasonably offer alternatives?
As a good rule of thumb, apps are malicious. If they are not, the libraries they include are. If, somehow, even the libraries aren’t malicious, the attackers who compromise the app or its backend are definitely malicious.
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#23This 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…
> 2. Make Android present convincing fake data to apps when permissions are denied
That reminds me, years ago I used to run a module called XPrivacy that does exactly this. It does require a rooted Android device though. I haven't used it for a long time, but seems it continues to live on as XPrivacyLua.
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#24> predatory loan apps Loan sharks?! We reached a point when I don't even allow chat app (WhatsApp) to access my contacts. Banks' apps love contacts as well ("send money to phone number"). With "convenience" bait they get birth dates, physical addresses, emails, profile photos, and whatnot. I see from behind my keyboard how banks salivate to calculate some credit worthiness from the contacts uploaded (and confirmed by…
I just immediately uninstall any app that requests access to contacts without me first indicating I'd like to use that app to share something with my contacts.
This is the correct kneejerk, but I assume it's not for the majority of users. It makes me hesitant to give out contact info knowing it'll end up building shadow profiles despite how useful having a easily-shareable vCard should be.
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2. Make Android present convincing fake data to apps when permissions are denied What about apps that aren't malicious? How can they tell the difference between a user who denied the permission to reasonably offer alternatives?
As a good rule of thumb, apps are malicious. If they are not, the libraries they include are. If, somehow, even the libraries aren’t malicious, the attackers who compromise the app or its backend are definitely malicious.
With that logic you really shouldn't use your computer.
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#26Off topic of the lending apps but something I have long wanted to see is actual information about the data accessed by these apps. Maybe Android has this, but on iOS I can go into privacy and easily see what apps have access to what data (and easily revoke that permission). But I don't see any kinds of metrics that would indicate that an app is possibly abusing that permission. For example, it would be awesome if I c…
Android has it: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/26/google-play-launches-its-o...
Unless I am missing something, that is all on the play store side before you download an app?
I am talking after you have the app installed to actually see what it is doing. Specifically what it is doing.
On iOS I can see that an app is accessing photos and I can see when, but I can't see what or how much.
The feature you mentioned is similar to the labels that iOS has. It even says that in the header.
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#27I think the OS should provide the ability to select items and then give opaque handles to applications. The app could send a message to the OS to display photo selector. The OS could send a message back with a handle to selected photo. One could then asks the OS to send a handle, which would forward selected item somewhere else.
iOS already has this feature precisely. I can either grant access to all photos or only a selected subset, or even just one.
And I love it, but it has two issues:
- Apps can refuse to work with that, like Google Photos (it used to work during the beta and it was perfect for me)
- Apps still offer their awful photo picker on top of your already-picked photos, so selecting new ones requires a lot of taps.
I wish Apple would reign in some of these apps. In-app browsers and custom photo pickers should be banned unless they have demonstrated advantages.
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#28This 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…
>2. Make Android present convincing fake data to apps when permissions are denied
GrapheneOS can do this. I believe you can even choose to make only chosen photos visible to a certain app
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#29I am curious. Why not give each app a private copy of common user resources? Every app has access to contacts but by default only the ones they create. Then android should allow sharing across apps based what the user wants to share. It would be a little bit tedious to share but an OS provided sharing tool can reduce that friction.
Re: Google to ban financial lending apps from accessing user photos, contacts
#30I think the OS should provide the ability to select items and then give opaque handles to applications. The app could send a message to the OS to display photo selector. The OS could send a message back with a handle to selected photo. One could then asks the OS to send a handle, which would forward selected item somewhere else.
iOS already has this feature precisely. I can either grant access to all photos or only a selected subset, or even just one.
They really need to implement this for contacts. The main reason I’ve never bothered using WhatsApp or any other third party messaging service is that they all refuse to work unless you give them access to your entire contacts database. No thanks.