App Permissions are no longer displayed on Google Play

CyberTech

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Google Play is the default store on most Android devices. Most Android users use the store to download new apps and games, and to update them.

Up until now, Google Play displayed permissions that an application needed to function. All applications have access to a base set of permissions that are not highlighted, but anything that goes beyond that needs to be specified in the application's manifest.

When you browse apps or games on Google Play now, you may notice that the permissions listing is no longer available. It appears that Google decided that the new data safety listing is sufficient in this regard.

Publishers are required to provide data safety information, as Google made it mandatory. It is up to the publisher to fill out the information though. Neither the Google Play application nor the Google Play store website list permissions anymore.

Google has not revealed why it decided to remove the option to view application and game permissions on its Android store. It is possible that Google thought that the new Data Safety listing is sufficient, or that permissions could scare users.

There are still options to display permissions

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CyberTech

Level 44
Thread author
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Top Poster
Well-known
Nov 10, 2017
3,247
Google says it’s rolling back its decision to remove a section from the Play Store that listed which permissions an app uses. The company had more or less replaced that info with its Data Safety section, which is supposed to give you an idea of what data apps are collecting and how that data is used.

The problem, as several commentators pointed out, is that the information in the Data Safety section came from developers, whereas the app permissions section was generated by Google. By removing it, Google made it impossible for users to do a quick fact-check by comparing the two sections or to use the info from both to get a more complete picture of what an app is up to and what it has access to.

In a Twitter thread on Thursday spotted by Android Police, Google says the app permissions section will return soon and that it made the decision to bring it back because of user feedback. At time of writing, I wasn’t able to see it on my device, but when the section returns, it should be available along with the Data Safety section.

The Data safety section provides users with a simplified view of how an app collects, shares, & secures user data, but we also want to make app permissions information easily viewable for users to understand an app’s ability to access specific restricted data & actions too.

— Android Developers (@AndroidDev) July 21, 2022

Google’s Data Safety section, which it announced in May 2021 and started rolling out in April this year, is similar to Apple’s privacy labels. Developers have to tell Google what they do with users’ data (such as whether it’s shared with third parties and what kind of data the app collects) and provide other info, like whether users can ask that their data be deleted and if the data is encrypted. While Google says that only developers know those details, it does say that it will take action against an app if it finds inaccuracies in the Data Safety info.

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