Google today announced a series of policy updates for Android apps distributed through the Play Store. An installed Android apps limit…<\/b>
\nGoogle today announced a series of policy updates for apps distributed through the Play Store. The most impactful sees Google limit most developers from seeing which Android apps are installed on your device. As part of its ongoing work to restrict the use of high risk\/sensitive permissions, Google is limiting what apps can use the QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission that \u201cgives visibility into the inventory of installed apps on a given device.\u201d This applies to apps that target API 30+ on devices running Android 11 and newer. Enforcement was originally meant to occur earlier, but delayed in light of COVID-19. Play regards the device inventory of installed apps queried from a user\u2019s device as personal and sensitive information, and use of the permission is only permitted when your app\u2019s core user facing functionality or purpose, requires broad visibility into installed apps on the user\u2019s device. Applications that can continue to use the permission include device search, antivirus, file managers, and browsers. Developers are asked to \u201csufficiently justify why a less intrusive method of app visibility will not sufficiently enable your app\u2019s policy compliant user facing core functionality.\u201d Visibility to the inventory of installed apps on a device must be directly related to the core purpose or core functionality that users access within your app. Meanwhile, temporary exceptions will be granted to dedicated banking and digital wallet apps so that they can \u201cobtain broad visibility into installed apps solely for security based purposes.\u201d Invalid use cases explicitly referenced by Google today include: This policy to limit access to the list of installed Android apps will come into effect on May 5, 2021. Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:<\/p>\n