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Connecting to your headphones requires bluetooth. Getting access to bluetooth means you can scan for nearby bluetooth devices. This may leak your location if id

by oauea 5y ago

Connecting to your headphones requires bluetooth. Getting access to bluetooth means you can scan for nearby bluetooth devices. This may leak your location if identifiable bluetooth beacons are nearby. Hence, you need location access. iOS is similar. But they do not give apps access to the mac address of scanned bluetooth devices which makes the platform borderline unusable for actual bluetooth apps.

Saris 5y ago
The problem is the permissions for bluetooth are lumped in with fine GPS location permissions.
- TurningCanadian 5y ago
  They're lumped together correctly. If you allow bluetooth access, the nearby bluetooth MAC addresses could be used to identify your location with near-GPS precision.
  - giaour 5y ago
    Or greater precision! GPS (at least as used on most phones) has a ~6 foot margin of error.
  - Saris 5y ago
    Fair enough, as long as those nearby devices have very precisely known locations in some database. But there's also the factor of battery usage, I'd like to be able to allow bluetooth but deny GPS hardware access for those occasional apps that like to trigger the GPS constantly for no good reason.
DisjointedHunt 5y ago
iOS is more scary. They don’t give apps the permission, but make no such restrictions on their internal services for analytics/competitor research/private APIs I’ve dug in much detail through what iOS makes available in the data takeout request on the Apple account level and I find it impossible to believe they include everything they have through iOS at the moment.
cute_boi 5y ago
The issue with Android is broad permissions. This is how dictator works; make a broad rule and harm everyone. We should abhor such malpractices. They should have just made separate permission for bluetooth.
zibzab 5y ago
This the apology I usually hear, and it is no longer true! Google has with every android release pushed this a bit further. In Android 12 it demands (1) background (2) precise positioning and (3) a GPS position lock. Note also that "Bluetooth may leak your location" is actually due to this very type of data gathering.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  "Bluetooth may leak your location" is not a result of this. It's the result of the increasingly widespread prevalence of bluetooth location devices. That is, bluetooth modules whose sole purpose it to be location beacons that can be looked up ( eg https://www.inpixon.com/technology/standards/bluetooth-low-energy https://www.inpixon.com/technology/standards/bluetooth-low-e... ). See also the massive amount of bluetooth tags these days from Tile, AirTags, etc... Android didn't used to require precise location to access bluetooth. This permission got "coarser" over time as the result of people using bluetooth specifically for location. And you'll note that Google / Pixel don't make any bluetooth tracking beacons. They didn't make this mess, they just reacted to it. The reality is letting an app scan for bluetooth means it can probably get your precise location in a non-trivial amount of places. Same as letting an app scan for wifi.
- izacus 5y ago
  > Google has with every android release pushed this a bit further. In Android 12 it demands (1) background (2) precise positioning and (3) a GPS position lock. This is not true. At all.

by oauea 5y ago

Saris 5y ago

The problem is the permissions for bluetooth are lumped in with fine GPS location permissions.

TurningCanadian 5y ago
They're lumped together correctly. If you allow bluetooth access, the nearby bluetooth MAC addresses could be used to identify your location with near-GPS precision.
- giaour 5y ago
  Or greater precision! GPS (at least as used on most phones) has a ~6 foot margin of error.
- Saris 5y ago
  Fair enough, as long as those nearby devices have very precisely known locations in some database. But there's also the factor of battery usage, I'd like to be able to allow bluetooth but deny GPS hardware access for those occasional apps that like to trigger the GPS constantly for no good reason.

DisjointedHunt 5y ago

iOS is more scary. They don’t give apps the permission, but make no such restrictions on their internal services for analytics/competitor research/private APIs I’ve dug in much detail through what iOS makes available in the data takeout request on the Apple account level and I find it impossible to believe they include everything they have through iOS at the moment.

cute_boi 5y ago

The issue with Android is broad permissions. This is how dictator works; make a broad rule and harm everyone. We should abhor such malpractices. They should have just made separate permission for bluetooth.

zibzab 5y ago

This the apology I usually hear, and it is no longer true! Google has with every android release pushed this a bit further. In Android 12 it demands (1) background (2) precise positioning and (3) a GPS position lock. Note also that "Bluetooth may leak your location" is actually due to this very type of data gathering.

kllrnohj 5y ago
"Bluetooth may leak your location" is not a result of this. It's the result of the increasingly widespread prevalence of bluetooth location devices. That is, bluetooth modules whose sole purpose it to be location beacons that can be looked up ( eg https://www.inpixon.com/technology/standards/bluetooth-low-energy https://www.inpixon.com/technology/standards/bluetooth-low-e... ). See also the massive amount of bluetooth tags these days from Tile, AirTags, etc... Android didn't used to require precise location to access bluetooth. This permission got "coarser" over time as the result of people using bluetooth specifically for location. And you'll note that Google / Pixel don't make any bluetooth tracking beacons. They didn't make this mess, they just reacted to it. The reality is letting an app scan for bluetooth means it can probably get your precise location in a non-trivial amount of places. Same as letting an app scan for wifi.
izacus 5y ago
> Google has with every android release pushed this a bit further. In Android 12 it demands (1) background (2) precise positioning and (3) a GPS position lock. This is not true. At all.