Privacy Dashboard in Android 12: Privacy has become very important part of humans. Which is why smartphone users are clamoring for more controls over the number of information apps can access on their phones.

Apple has included some drastic permission change in its new iOS 14 that got lots of advertising companies such as Facebook ranting. But it seems Google is about to join in by adding a new privacy dashboard in the incoming Android 12.

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Android OS power over 2.5 billion devices. And that means the security and privacy of those using the Android OS needs to be up tight. The Android 11 OS released last year brought some major changes.

For example, apps are no longer allowed by default to grab your location in the background. In fact, they’re blocked from requesting permission if the user already rejected it multiple times. A one-time permission was also added to that by default apps don’t get permanent access to sensitive permissions.

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Google also recently announced plans to add a “safety” section to Google Play, which is similar in concept to Privacy Labels in Apple’s App Store.

According to a report by The Information, Google is taking “baby steps” on increasing phone privacy. Part of the publication reads “a person who has seen the planned presentation” and reports that Google “plans to preview coming privacy controls that will make it easier for smartphone users to reach a settings screen where they can restrict apps’ abilities to access the phone’s camera, location and other permissions.”

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To collaborate with the publication above, the guys over at XDA Developers shared some few screenshots. These screenshots shows that there is a dedicated privacy dashboard in the Android 12 settings. This is a place where users can more easily restrict apps’ ability to access the phone’s camera, location, and other permissions. See screenshots below:

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With the new privacy dashboard, users can see which apps are using components of their phone such as camera, microphone, location etc. They can also see how often these apps access these components and revoke the access if they think it’s too frequent.

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We don’t know if Google will include the privacy level of iOS 14 in the coming Android 12, but there might be chance. If there is one thing we’ve learn over the years, is that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Overall it’s pretty good that the Android OS is always working to improve the security and privacy of its ecosystem. The more 2.5 billion users who trust the OS needs to be safe.

Via