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The docs note that certain kinds of beacons (which presumably would only be useful for location-finding) will be filtered from results. Otherwise I suppose it's
by thombles 3y ago
The docs note that certain kinds of beacons (which presumably would only be useful for location-finding) will be filtered from results. Otherwise I suppose it's just a soft flag for Play Store review or similar. There's not much you can do - if a given app has access to BLE scan results, it's very difficult to prove that it's _not_ deriving location from that either locally or on a server. I'm satisfied that it's usually going to be difficult though, with the possible exception of say, a supermarket app who plants non-beacon-like devices in their stores. However a user would probably raise their eyebrows at a supermarket app that asks for access to Bluetooth.
- russdill 3y agoIt's difficult to comprehend what's going on here without it being spelled out because it really is that dumb. For an Android app to connect to BLE devices, it needs the location permission. An Android app with the location permission gets access to gps location. It's not possible to allow an app to connect to a BLE device without also giving the app access to the location API.
- lultimouomo 3y agoAgain, this is before Android 12 - afterwards the app can declare that it just wants BLE not for location purposes, and not get access to GPS (and apparently certain kind of BLE beacons). Still it's mind boggling that this glaring issue survived so long.