Researchers say hundreds of preinstalled apps can access a log found on Android devices where sensitive contact tracing information is stored
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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This is a very minor issue if it is an issue at all.
The system log is private. The only apps that can access it are apps that are given special permission from your phone manufacturer. This manufacturer could also get this information other ways if they wanted to.
The only real issue here is that it raises the attack surface because instead of a website or app needing to break into your OS, they can also break into one of these built-in apps. So it would be easier to find an exploit chain that could retrieve these identifiers.
The real question to be asking here is why do these apps need access to the system log in the first place?
People trusted Google’s word, on privacy for a service they wrote? Really??