It was revealed on Tuesday that the next version of Android apps will force you to use the built-in camera and ignore third-party defaults. This is part of Android 11’s focus on privacy, with Google specifically wanting to protect location data extracted from the camera.
With this change, users will still be able to download and use a third-party camera app by launching it directly from the home screen / launcher. However, with Android 11, you can not be in an app like Twitter and open another camera client other than the default pre-installed by the manufacturer. (Apps like Instagram and Snapchat, which have a built-in camera interface, are not affected.)
Google tells The edge, in addition to updating its document of changes to Android 11 Behavior yesterday, that this change “privacy and security” is specifically intended to protect location data:
This is designed to ensure that the EXIF location metadata is processed correctly based on the location rights defined in the app that sends the intent.
The scenario that Google wants to avoid is the app being responsible for calling / opening the camera for accessing location data, even if it never got permission. The edge calls the time “Shutterfly was accused of reaping GPS coordinates from EXIF metadata.”
Google’s solution is to have regular applications “[specify] the package name of the third-party camera app to pursue the intent. Meanwhile, the company says:
This change does not affect the ability of users to install and use any camera app to create images or videos directly. A user can set up a third-party app as the default camera app.
You can still use a hardware shortcut key to launch your preferred camera. Google’s privacy tent pole for Android 11 also includes one-time access rights for camera, microphone and location, as well as the auto-reset apps you haven’t used in a while. There is also a strong focus on background location data.
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