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    Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

    (peabee.substack.com)
    1192 points gniting | 15 comments | 29 Mar 25 21:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    andsoitis ◴[30 Mar 25 00:11 UTC] No.43519910[source]▶
    > everyone knows all the alls on your phone

    On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.

    replies(10): >>43519937 #>>43519943 #>>43520950 #>>43521020 #>>43521389 #>>43521565 #>>43522434 #>>43522575 #>>43523112 #>>43526348 #
    1. WuxiFingerHold ◴[30 Mar 25 05:21 UTC] No.43521565[source]▶
    iPhones are less of a privacy nightmare.

    One of the biggest incentives for creating apps is to scrape all kind of data from the users. Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts. And how many actually need your contacts to function. That's why I'm still a bit surprised that many seem to be surprised by findings like this one here.

    replies(3): >>43521646 #>>43521958 #>>43522271 #
    2. josephg ◴[30 Mar 25 05:41 UTC] No.43521646[source]▶
    I wish there was an option for “give bogus contacts” which showed the app a list of contacts - but it was all randomly generated junk. Make it so the app can’t tell if the contacts it gets are real or fake.

    I read a fiction book years ago where there were cameras everywhere. To get privacy, instead of hiding their identities the protagonist paid companies to insert bogus information into the information brokers’ network. So if they tried to figure out where they were on a certain day, 20 records would match. I think this is a much more likely vision of the future.

    replies(1): >>43521689 #
    3. 3np ◴[30 Mar 25 05:50 UTC] No.43521689[source]▶
    I guess rather than closing my Google account I should have removed the 2FA and changed the password to a weak one on the HIBP list (:
    4. wruza ◴[30 Mar 25 06:53 UTC] No.43521958[source]▶
    Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts. And how many actually need your contacts to function.

    That is, again, not require but ask for on iphone. I have zero non-functioning apps on my iphone due to denied access to contacts. Even a chinese bluetooth light controller doesn't dare (while refusing to work on android for the same reason).

    You can hate apple/iphone ecosystem all you want, but let's not sneak false claims into how they actually work.

    replies(1): >>43522262 #
    5. hk__2 ◴[30 Mar 25 07:54 UTC] No.43522262[source]▶
    > I have zero non-functioning apps on my iphone due to denied access to contacts.

    You don’t have WhatsApp then.

    replies(2): >>43522309 #>>43523903 #
    6. hk__2 ◴[30 Mar 25 07:55 UTC] No.43522271[source]▶
    > Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts.

    It is so annoying that it’s either "give access to ALL my contacts and ALL their information (yes, even the notes I took on their favorite things for next Christmas)" or "don’t give access". I wish we could limit the number of contacts and the level of information we give.

    replies(4): >>43522743 #>>43524577 #>>43525917 #>>43530566 #
    7. nechuchelo ◴[30 Mar 25 08:04 UTC] No.43522309{3}[source]▶
    I do and deny it access to contacts. Everything works fine.
    8. normie3000 ◴[30 Mar 25 09:27 UTC] No.43522743[source]▶
    Photo access has improved a lot in this regard recently.
    9. jen20 ◴[30 Mar 25 13:13 UTC] No.43523903{3}[source]▶
    iOS grants just the contacts you select - including “none” to apps. WhatsApp works fine in that regime.
    10. subscribed ◴[30 Mar 25 14:42 UTC] No.43524577[source]▶
    Check if GrapheneOS suits your needs. It has "contact scopes", ie you cna literally allow the app to see single contact only.

    Same with storage scopes: one directory and that's it.

    11. CharlesW ◴[30 Mar 25 17:34 UTC] No.43525917[source]▶
    > It is so annoying that it’s either "give access to ALL my contacts and ALL their information… […] I wish we could limit the number of contacts and the level of information we give.

    iOS added fine-grained (at the contact level) access to contacts data last year.

    https://lifehacker.com/tech/you-can-control-which-contacts-a...

    replies(1): >>43526361 #
    12. MBCook ◴[30 Mar 25 18:30 UTC] No.43526361{3}[source]▶
    They did the same for photos years ago.

    Many apps have not updated and perhaps never will.

    replies(1): >>43526828 #
    13. CharlesW ◴[30 Mar 25 19:31 UTC] No.43526828{4}[source]▶
    They don't need to be, since it's enforced at the OS level. Users can limit permissions to individual contacts regardless of whether iOS apps have been updated to explicitly handle that use case.
    replies(1): >>43540766 #
    14. mercutio2 ◴[31 Mar 25 03:24 UTC] No.43530566[source]▶
    iOS hasn’t allowed access to contact notes for several years, and last year added support for providing arbitrary subsets of contacts to all apps.
    15. MBCook ◴[31 Mar 25 22:43 UTC] No.43540766{5}[source]▶
    I meant updated yo the newer nicer replacement UIs.

    For example I know Slack still doesn’t use the single picture picker. They still want access to everything.

    So iOS lets me limit what they can see, but it’s still a pain compared to just letting me pick the one picture I want.