May Android 11, Google forces all apps to use the device’s built-in camera app—as opposed to any third-party camera app you may have set as your default – when taking photos or taking videos to better protect users’ location data, a company rep of edge on Thursday.
The Android engineering team first mentioned the change on Monday, explain that “We believe it is the right trade-off to protect the privacy and security of our users” in response to problems over Android 11s continue beta. Google has since confirmed to Verge that this is a change part of Android 11’s concentrating on privacy and a note was added Android 11 bsavior changes document explaining the decision:
“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. “
Simply put, almost everywhere you take a picture on your device, that image is accessed geographically with the GPS coordinates of where you took it. Google’s try to make sure the app responsible for access of your device camera can not smoke Android licensing system and quietly harvest your location data.
Which one does happens: In 2019, researchers found that more than 1,000 Android apps ran restrictions and secret personal data of sources such as Wi-Fi connections and photometad data, even after users have explicitly denied their permission to do so. The popular photo editing app Shutterfly was there, accused of quietly collecting GPS coordinates from user photos and relay that information to the company’s servers. Shutterfly letter these accusations denied and said that the company only collects location data after explicit permission consent of users, according to a CNN report at the time.
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For better or worse, tits update brings Android 11 more in accordance with the type of walls you find on Apple’s products, although it does not completely disable users of third-party camera apps.
“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, ”changes the behavior of Android 11 when reading.
Sa you will still be able to do it take photos instantly with apps like OpenCamera, A Better Camera, or Camera FV-5, if you launch them by tap the app icon on your home screen or use in shortcut key like double-clicking your power button. And, as the Verge notes, popular apps with cameras already baked ias Snapchat and Instagram are not affected by this update.
The important difference is that if you have one Android app (again, one that doesn’t already have a built-in camera) and go to take a picture, it will take you directly to your device camera app instead of offering you the choice of which app to use.
It is a small but important solution that begs the question: why does Google not just launch these bad apps that steal people’s data out syn Play Store? But then I remember that, when Google got serious try to cut back on these types of policy interventions, it would probably be must loosen most of his library. And so, the bandaide approach is it!
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