Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by seanalltogether on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @02:57PM
(#31586451)
This is the reason I've been so frustrated with working with bluetooth devices on Android. Android places all bluetooth usage under Location permissions, and if you need talk to bluetooth devices in the background, users have to manually consent to background location tracking, even though that's not what we want to actually do.
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Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by mirntyfirty on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @03:01PM
(#31586483)
Is this because it automatically becomes possible to obtain location when accessing Bluetooth?
Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by lern_too_spel on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @03:48PM
(#31587040)
This is in fact what most iOS apps that ask for Bluetooth permission use it for. https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/19/20867286/ios-13-bluetooth...
Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by alephxyz on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @03:06PM
(#31586529)
It's because it's easy to estimate someone's location from nearby Bluetooth beacons or wifi access points.
Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by gnabgib on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @05:59PM
(#31588695)
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, none of this is true for the Android devices I've owned. Vendor specific perhaps? Devious way to do it. Doesn't Apple suffer with the same problem (location+bluetooth tied?)
Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by lern_too_spel on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @06:37PM
(#31589043)
It depends on the targetSdkVersion. https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/05/19/android-12-apps-won...
Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by gnabgib on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @09:09PM
(#31590144)
That article says that from Android 6-12 if an app wanted to scan for bluetooth it ALSO had to require the location permission. Not that BT had hidden location information. As of Android 12 apps could bluetooth scan without requesting/enabling location.
Re:Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amou...
by lern_too_spel on Thursday June 02, 2022 @01:37AM
(#31591705)
That's what the person you're replying to said as well. In order to use Bluetooth, their app had to request a location permission from the user. If they wrote an app targeting a version of Android before that range, the permission would be requested for them even if their code didn't explicitly request it. If they targeted a version in that range, they would have to request the permission at build time.