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I also have an audio app with a background audio service on Google Play, and I also have to request the READ_PHONE_STATE permission. I have an explanation in my

I also have an audio app with a background audio service on Google Play, and I also have to request the READ_PHONE_STATE permission. I have an explanation in my store listing but I still get emails about it every week. It's totally nuts. Knowing the phone is ringing or off the hook should not be privileged information.

dllthomas 12y ago
"Knowing the phone is ringing or off the hook should not be privileged information." It seems like it could be a privacy concern. It seems a common enough need that it probably shouldn't be lumped together with other things, though.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Could you elaborate how it's a privacy concern? I have to get pretty darn creative to come up with any scenarios.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    What makes a privacy concern legitimate, to your mind? It's giving data about a person to a group that otherwise would not have had access to it. It seems first order a privacy concern. There's also some possibility it could be turned into more sensitive data - if my app tends to be recommended around social circles, and I see two people were on the phone over the same period of time, it's likely they were talking.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      And if a service can reach out to the Internet, it knows my IP can tell where I am. And if it suddenly cuts out after being on a known IP, then maybe I'm going through a local tunnel. That's what I meant by you have to get really creative to think how this could possibly be impacting. If you have a sandbox, you have to choose which permissions you're going to ask for carefully, to avoid overloading users. Android made a bad decision by making phone apps needing permission to know if the phone is active, then compounded that by tying it into device ID and who you're calling.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        "The privacy concerns are not significant enough to merit demanding permissions" is certainly a defensible position; I'm not sure whether I agree with it, but it's not crazy. That is distinct, though, from "there is no privacy concern."

dllthomas 12y ago

"Knowing the phone is ringing or off the hook should not be privileged information." It seems like it could be a privacy concern. It seems a common enough need that it probably shouldn't be lumped together with other things, though.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Could you elaborate how it's a privacy concern? I have to get pretty darn creative to come up with any scenarios.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  What makes a privacy concern legitimate, to your mind? It's giving data about a person to a group that otherwise would not have had access to it. It seems first order a privacy concern. There's also some possibility it could be turned into more sensitive data - if my app tends to be recommended around social circles, and I see two people were on the phone over the same period of time, it's likely they were talking.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    And if a service can reach out to the Internet, it knows my IP can tell where I am. And if it suddenly cuts out after being on a known IP, then maybe I'm going through a local tunnel. That's what I meant by you have to get really creative to think how this could possibly be impacting. If you have a sandbox, you have to choose which permissions you're going to ask for carefully, to avoid overloading users. Android made a bad decision by making phone apps needing permission to know if the phone is active, then compounded that by tying it into device ID and who you're calling.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      "The privacy concerns are not significant enough to merit demanding permissions" is certainly a defensible position; I'm not sure whether I agree with it, but it's not crazy. That is distinct, though, from "there is no privacy concern."