Google has continued its push to make Android the most secure mobile operating system by cracking down on app permissions.
The company recently revealed that a recent change in its apps permission policy now means that 98% of Android apps do not ask for access to user’s SMS and call data.
This folliowed the introduction of a 2018 policy that aimed to ensure user data privacy and security in mind by limiting apps that were unnecessarily seeking permission to personal information.
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Android app privacy
As a result, now only a handful of applications require access to call logs and SMS’s to perform their core tasks.
Google recently revealed that it has blocked over 790,000 possibly malicious applications from being published on the Play Store, with ‘tens of thousands of apps' removed or updated.
A policy update in 2019 also targeted towards segregating apps that were kids and family-friendly.
Despite these claims and updates, several dodgy Android apps have slipped through the gaps. Last year a popular app called CamScanner came with an update that allowed hackers to install a trojan on the devices. Another investigation found over 1300 apps found to be able to access user data even when they were explicitly denied the permission to do so.
While Google's aim of making Android as safe as iOS may still be a way off, these attempts appear to have helped educate app developers, who have started to respect user privacy by not attempting to collect user data unless specifically required.
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Via: Google Blog
