Android 12 Developer Preview 1 dropped yesterday and it discovered a bunch of new features, including the permission management hub. This is the latest discovery by XDA Developers.
Do note that this hub probably won’t be open for access to users, though. This is not the first time such a hub is spotted, though. Back in Android Q Developer Preview, a new permission management hub was spotted.
A lot of stuff that was included there got released with Android 10. One thing was missing, though, as the source notes, and that is the Permissions Usage Dashboard.
That dashboard was quite interesting and useful, as it presented an overview of the permissions used on your device by various apps. Such a feature can reveal an app that is abusing permissions given to it.
The Permission Management Hub is making a comeback in Android 12
Well, you’ll be glad to know that the Permissions Usage Dashboard made a comeback in Android 12 Developer Preview 1. It is only available as an internal tool for debugging purposes, though.
The Permissions Usage Dashboard shows the apps that have accessed any particular permission, but it does not share the exact information they’ve accessed. What’s interesting is that there’s also a warning, saying that the data may not be accurate.
If that is the case, then there’s no point in using it either way. Also, it would be much more useful to have details on what permissions exactly are accessed by particular apps.
It almost certainly won’t be a user-facing tool
The Permissions Management Hub may not make its way to Android 12 as a user-facing tool, but it may arrive at some point in the future as such. Google is probably working on this continuously, so we’ll see what comes out of it.
We already have a ton of coverage on Android 12 on the site, and chances are more will follow soon. Android 12 Developer Preview 1 did share quite a bit of information thus far.