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Privacy Advisor

Privacy Advisor displays information about the permissions the apps installed on your device have.

Android permission handling

Permissions are a central security mechanism of Android that grant an app certain rights. With version 6, Android has changed the way apps ask for permissions:

  • Apps that are created for Android 6 or later ask you to grant a permission at run time, that is when you access a feature of the app that needs a permission you have not granted yet.
  • Apps that are created for Android 5 or earlier (referred to as legacy apps) ask for all required permissions at install time. When a legacy app is installed on Android 6 and later, you can deny individual permissions. But because the app is not designed to handle this, it may stop working.

What you can see in Privacy Advisor

Privacy Advisor shows you the status of permissions that are classified by Google as dangerous because they affect your privacy or the operation of other apps:

  • Calendar permission. Calendar
  • Camera permission. Camera
  • Contacts permission. Contacts
  • Location permission. Location
  • Microphone permission. Microphone
  • Phone permission. Phone
  • Body sensors permission. Body sensors
  • SMS permission. SMS
  • Storage permission. Storage

A permission can have one of the following states:

  • Granted. Requested and granted
  • Denied. Requested and denied

Note

For legacy apps, permissions are always shown as “Requested and granted”, even if you have turned off the permission in the app settings.

What you can do in Privacy Advisor

  • To view details of all permissions an app requested (including non-dangerous permissions): Tap the app icon.
  • To grant or deny a permission: Tap the app icon and then tap Change permissions to open the app’s App info page. From there, tap Permissions.
  • To display the history of changes you made to permissions: Tap Permission change history Permission change history. in the title bar.
  • To configure what you see in Privacy Advisor: Tap Filter. You can exclude certain permissions or apps of a certain type, like system apps or legacy apps.
  • To change the app order: Tap Sort Sort. and then select how the apps are sorted.