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There are a few separate issues here: 1) photos permission includes access to full file for each photo, including geotagged metadata and any audio from "live p
by chatmasta 3y ago
There are a few separate issues here:
1) photos permission includes access to full file for each photo, including geotagged metadata and any audio from "live photo"
This seems desirable and working as expected. You might legitimately want to share the live photo, or the photo with metadata. However, it would be nice if the photo picker asked you whether you wanted to share with metadata. (Note: unlike the photo picker in native apps, the Safari file picker, ie the HTML5 <input type="file" />, does strip EXIF data by default.)
2) it's easy to take a live photo without realizing it, and similarly easy to share it
This could be improved when selecting photos within the photo picker. There should be an option to separately select the static or full file (maybe with a long press).
2) granting access to "all photos" doesn't alert you when an app accesses a photo without you selecting it for some reason
This used to be much worse, when the default and only option was to grant access to all photos, or no photos. Ever since Apple added the option to select which photos an app can access, I think this is less of a problem. But there is an education issue; people don't realize that "all" means the app can truly read all your photos, including geotagged metadata and audio of live photos, even without you selecting one to "upload" (or "do something with," depending on the purpose of the app). Even as a relative expert, I never understood this until I saw a demo app (to prove the privacy issue) that looped through all your photos and displayed your geotagged locations.
But even if people did realize this, there is no indication that an app has accessed a photo, like there is with the icon indicating the microphone or camera was used recently. Perhaps a solution to this could be changing the photo picker to overlay a green dot on any photo the app has accessed.
- benguild 3y agoWould be interesting to see Apple show which apps accessed what photo and perhaps why!
- chatmasta 3y agoDefinitely. And it would be a lot more interesting if they tracked it for a few months and then rolled out the reporting feature retroactively :)
- jakear 3y agoWould be a lot more interesting if they got rid of the awful “select which photos the app can access” flow and just forced apps to use the system picker.
- TobyTheDog123 3y agoAgree - I don't know why this isn't the default, or why "all photos" needs to exist in the first place. The only valid use case I can think of is for selecting an image from a gallery in-app.
- j5155 3y agoOther examples where all photos are required, if maybe not valid: third party automatic photo backup, showing a random photo on a widget, prompting a user to post a photo of a location to Google Maps automatically…
- jakear 3y agoIt should be possible to allow access to all files, or allow picking a single file. The weird intermediary where I need to first select that I don’t want to allow access to all files, then select the files I do want (the single file I’m posting/sending), then select that file again from the app’s custom picker from amongst the files I’ve previously shared with that app, is absolutely awful. Steve is rolling in his grave.
- lilyball 3y agoFWIW my understanding is you don't get geotagging information on photos unless you've requested location access too.
- NikolaNovak 3y agoI did.not.realize.this either! I mean, it makes sense, but ouchiewauva, how much is that misstating the typical conscious intent of the user :O
- Alifatisk 3y ago> Even as a relative expert, I never understood this until I saw a demo app (to prove the privacy issue) that looped through all your photos and displayed your geotagged locations. Any link to this demo? Would love to use it as example
- chatmasta 3y agoI can't find it, unfortunately, despite checking my purchase history and googling for relevant terms. I can't remember if it was even an official app - it might have just been a proof-of-concept with testflight. It was part of a blog post from a security researcher who was describing the situation, and it was prior to the "selected photos" permission, so I doubt it would work now anyway. EDIT: Found it: https://krausefx.com/blog/ios-privacy-detectlocation-an-easy-way-to-access-the-users-ios-location-data-without-actually-having-access https://krausefx.com/blog/ios-privacy-detectlocation-an-easy... Also worth checking out the author's other projects: https://krausefx.com/projects https://krausefx.com/projects