On Android, that is not a setting you get.

An Android, it also asks for permission to read all your photos and you can't use the app if you don't accept. I only run the app on an old iPhone I had lying around for that reason.

I know that you didn't go out and buy the iPhone just for this purpose, but dang, this might be the pinnacle of modern consumerism. "I have a spare smartphone to use for apps that I don't want on my main smartphone."

Heh. I prefer Android and my wife uses iPhones, so if I want to run any iOS apps I have to make do with her old iPhone 5. So maybe not the pinnacle of consumerism, but I'm certainly lucky to be able to hoard old tech.

Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable? If not, it sounds like grounds to be reported and removed from Google Play as malware. I thought that would be 100% against the developer rules. Maybe it is just a guideline to only ask permission for things you need, and to let the user use the app even if permission isn't granted.

Maybe it's just that Google won't feature you or something. But it should be against Play Store rules if it isn't already.

From experience, Google does flag up permission usage as part of featuring. Insofar as listing all the ones that are used and requesting an explanation of why each is needed.

Not that I know of. It's never even asked for that kind of thing on the iPhone version so it's pretty confusing.

Edit: according to old posts on a support forum, it might ask for a photo of your ticket stub. That doesn't explain why it wants access to your own photos, which is a different permission on Android from getting access to your camera.

> Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable.

Maybe image recognition to see the kinds of things you're eating/considering buying before/after going to the movies?

This seems pretty reasonable to me. I consider it a fair trade for the monetary discount they're offering on their services.

I don't want to spend $10-$15 whenever I want to go to the movies. But I'm more than happy to provide access to my data and photos which I have no way to easily convert to monetary value.

If I didn't feel this way, I just wouldn't use their service.

If only it were that harmless.

No, the reason for accessing your Photos is to get the location and timestamp off of every one and build a nice little trail of where you are and where you go.

To what end? This kind of hyperbole just desensitizes me to concerns about data collection.

That doesn't seem too far fetched to me. Knowing where you go gives a lot of information about you, who you are, what you're interested in etc... That sounds valuable for targeted advertising.

That doesn't seem the least bit reasonable to me. Especially if it's doing it without informing me.

If they ask for your permission to use your pictures and you give it, it shouldn't matter what they're doing. You could've said no and opted to not use their service.

It very much can and does matter. Asking for access to my photos so I can send one through a messaging service is hugely different than simply wanting to suck up all data about me.

I cannot wait until the US gets a privacy law like the new EU one. Then they would have to absolutely justify why they're collecting that.

> Asking for access to my photos so I can send one through a messaging service

MoviePass is not a messaging service though.

If they ask permission for your photos and you give it, you live with the consequences. Or you value your privacy more than MoviePass and choose to not use the service.

No. That is not a response; that is not a rebuttal; that is a nothing comment. You have added less than nothing to the conversation.

Thank you for the kind words.

You can disable location access completely, or while in background, or prompt every time.

On Samsung devices you can put an app to sleep -- it gets no cycles when it's not running and can't even send you notifications. It's great for these kind of apps that you want to use but otherwise don't want running in the background.

My guess is that they don't collect the data themselves, but buy the location data from some other company. Then they can combine the location data with the movie data they collect themselves. Then they could either use that for advertising, or sell the bundled data along to advertisers for more money.

By they do you mean the NSA or the CIA? ;)