I recently asked the /c/Android community what information Google has access to on stock Android, assuming the user is not using any Google apps, and was told Google has full “unstoppable” access to the entire device, including Signal messages, the microphone, duckduckgo search history and anything displayed on the screen at all times.

Does this mean that encrypted messaging is essentially pointless to use on Android? I’m a newb here so go easy on me.

  • Shadow@lemmy.ca
    141·
    17 hours ago

    I believe notifications would be accessible. Note that i don’t mean the push notification backend mentioned by Doomerang, but the actual notification that goes into your status bar (which is all processed on device). That would be readable by the OS in theory.

    • jenesaisquoi@feddit.orgEnglish
      2·
      5 hours ago

      It’s not readable by the OS in theory, it is literally readable. Displaying a notification is an API call from the app to the framework provided by google. To put it in laymans terms the app goes “hey google please display this text as a notification”.