Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@thestinger
Last active January 31, 2024 22:25
Show Gist options
  • Save thestinger/e4bb344dcc545d2ee00dcc22fd886f29 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save thestinger/e4bb344dcc545d2ee00dcc22fd886f29 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Android Q privacy features in the context of the AndroidHardening / GrapheneOS work

Some of the privacy features that I developed in the past are now going to be standard Android features in the next major release. In some cases, the implementation that I worked on ended up being a direct inspiration for the upstream work. I also pushed them to enable permissions review by default, which may have had some influence on it finally shipping as enabled. It was seemingly implemented for some niche scenario and most of their privacy / security team didn't know about the feature existing when I talked to them about it in the past.

Most of my work has focused on improving security, and that focus will be somewhat increased in Android Q due to many of the privacy improvements being part of the baseline OS.

Android P had previously replaced some of the privacy features developed as part of the AndroidHardening project such as restricting access to the camera, microphone and sensors in the background.

Features that were not implemented by my past work:

Features that were implemented by my past releases:

Features that are still exclusive to the past AndroidHardening project work:

  • Network permission toggle
  • Sensors permission toggle
  • No automatic grants of 'Display over other apps'
  • More control over secondary user accounts (such as disallowing audio access or installing new apps to the profile)
  • Minimal and documented set of default network connections (over-the-air updates, GPS almanac updates, connectivity checks, DNS)
  • Keyboard personalized suggestions, etc. disabled by default
  • Bluetooth and NFC disabled by default
  • Other changes that are not listed here
@p410n3
Copy link

p410n3 commented Jun 10, 2020

Awesome Resource

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment