Android 11 is set to make a number of fine changes in order further refine the Android user experience, and according to a recent report, the latest of these changes is related to camera apps on Android phones. According to Google, the present ability for users to set a third party camera app as the default camera app on their Android phones represent a ‘privacy’ loophole, which rogue apps may be misusing to harvest user location data that may be sold or misused without express user consent. In order to prevent this, starting with Android 11, Google will restrict third party camera apps from taking over as the main camera app on your phone.
The reason for this is that Google does not have particular control over how a third party camera app behaves. As a result, if a random app wants to access your phone’s camera, and your default phone camera app is a third party camera app, Google will have little to no control over what data the app is able to access through the third party camera apps. As a result, Google states that many rogue apps use this opportunity to read your geolocation data through EXIF data of images, all by gaining access to your files through these third party camera apps. This, Google states, is used by many apps to collate user location data and use it for various purposes, thereby representing a significant privacy issue.
Does this mean that you cannot use third party camera apps any more? Google states that users can continue to use their preferred third party camera apps on Android as before, only that they will not be the default app of choice any more, so that Google has better control over restricting access of location and other sensitive data to apps that you install. In fact, the change to Android 11 will even allow third party apps to launch third party camera apps as well, but they will not be able to read any data off them, therefore making the open permission access network of Android a bit tighter.
Google’s approach is similar to what Apple does on iOS right now. While it has opened up iOS in recent times to allow third party email and browser apps to become the default service, it still uses its own camera app as the default camera service. If users wish for an alternative, they can still launch a third party camera app from the home screen and use it for their photo and video needs. Given how we intentionally open our camera apps to shoot, Google’s decision to not allow third party camera apps from becoming default may not particularly impact how these apps are used, since they are not being restricted on the user end.
However, according to a report by The Verge, camera app developers have not taken too kindly to it, and believe that the move “does not make sense”. A bigger point of concern here, however, would be Google’s anti-competitive issues – the tech giant is already accused of plenty of biases for forcing users to rely on the Play Store for apps (hence creating a biased playing field for small time app developers in terms of revenue sharing), as well as promoting their own services by leveraging their power. By further restricting the ability for users to set a default camera app of their preference, smaller developers may raise a point that Google is yet again promoting their app over others by using their dominant position over smaller vendors.
Nevertheless, while the anti-competitive angle is for a completely different debate, starting with Android 11, you will seemingly see more of your phone’s default camera app, even if that’s against your wish. That said, if it does help restrict services that indirectly get access to your location data, it might just be a sacrifice worth making.
Comments
0 comment