Worrying Privacy Revelations By Lineage OS

And it is overwhelming!

👆🏻Steve Jobs interview on the importance of privacy permissions.

I am using a Custom ROM of Android called Lineage OS. It has a sweet little feature called Privacy Guard that let’s you block or allow permissions such as location, camera, SMS, contacts, etc. And here’s what it shows

Maps was installed just 2 days ago and location services were switched on for a total of few minutes and look at how many times it has accessed location. This gives a vague idea of the frequency of the apps requesting permissions.

Below are some snapshots will give you more idea of which app was accessing which permission and its frequency. This despite blocking a good number of them.

WhatsApp has read my contacts around 96,000 times in the last 7 months?? That’s 13,714 times per month which is 457 times per day. Why would it need to read my contacts so many times? That’s just ridiculous.

Agreed that some permission are needed sometimes but not all the time. It is logical that an app READS or REQUESTS a service or feature only when needed and not constantly bang its head asking for it.

And I haven’t even installed Facebook on my phone 🧐

If you are interested in experimenting yourself, head over and install Lineage OS on your phone. It’s available for a wide range of phones.

Stay tuned to my design prototype on Android permissions to enhance privacy.