You have probably seen that most of the apps you install on your Android powered device from Google Play requires some special permissions, known as app permissions. If you are one of those who don’t pay much attention to the app permissions, you might end up getting malware (aka bad apps) on your phone and end up spammed with ads, notifications or, even worse, get taxed for phone calls or messages that these apps will make or send on your behalf.
So, as you can see now, it is very important to know what the app permissions mean and also pay attention to them – and to make things a lot easier, I have decided to share with you this guide to Android App permissions and tell you what each app permission means! And we’ll start with the top two permissions that are used to scam people:
Send SMS messages
Any app that wants permission to send SMS (or MMS) messages should be looked at with a lot of caution. Unless it’s a trusted SMS application, most likely it will be used to send malicious SMSs and result in you having to pay a really high bill. Closely investigate the app that requires such permission before installing it!
Make Phone Calls
Again, you should be really careful if an app requires this, since it allows it to call any number without your approval and you can end up calling high paid numbers without knowing. There are legitimate programs using this (like Google Talk or Skype), but if the app you want to install has nothing to do with calling others or is not trusted, better stay away.
Modify or delete SD card content
This might be dangerous because it allows the app to read, edit or delete anything stored on your SD card, meaning that, for example, an app can upload all your photos to a website. However, there is a ton of trustworthy apps that require this permission simply because their developers want to store data on the SD card. So use common sense (and other users’ opinion) when deciding to install an app with this requirement.
Read phone state and identity
This app permission is usually associated with trustworthy programs that need to know when your phone is about to ring in order to save progress for example or switch back the audio so you can get the phone call. However, this also allows developers to get information about your phone, including three specific codes unique to your phone that allow developers to easily track you and even check out your phone for piracy.
Read Contact Data
Usually connected to the social apps, this allows the application to read your contact data (duh!). However, if the app is not social by nature or there’s no need to have access to contact data (quick dialing apps also need this, for example), then you should not offer an app access to it as there is no point in doing so!
Read & write calendar data
Although it is not as bad as having your personal photos sent over to a stranger, having an app read or write in your calendar – if it has bad intentions – might be just as annoying. Usually, task management apps and similar application require this permission and can be considered safe. Other application might want to gain something from this, so be careful!
Read sensitive log data
Usually, this permission should not be granted, because it allows the application to check out log datas of other applications, which should not be any of their business. There are few apps that actually use this (like apps for debugging or similar), but otherwise, this should be considered a no-no!
Coarse (network-based) location and fine (GPS) location
These apps simply track your location – if you don’t want an app to know where you are, then don’t do it. If you want to use Google Maps, for example, this app is required. So usually, this can’t be used by malicious applications – unless you are a celebrity and there’s some paparazzi trying to see where you are.
Full Internet access
This is a very tricky permission to consider as a lot of legitimate apps require it. But also it is somewhat of a must have permission for bad apps – those who serve ads or malware that infects your phone. Basically, this permission allows the app to connect to the internet and this is required to get the ads or the malware to your phone. But there are so many apps that need it (to update, to download or sync with servers) that you have to be really careful when you choose not to give this permission. It’s best to check out the reviews and make sure that nobody complains about shady things connected to this permission.
Create Bluetooth connection
This is a pretty harmless permission that allows your phone to communicate wirelessly.
Prevent phone from sleeping
Again a pretty harmless permission, this is used mainly by games in which you might not be always with your hand on the touch screen. This way, the app prevents the screen from turning off – so probably the only bad thing this permission can do is to drain your battery faster, but I doubt anybody wants to do that to you.
View network state (view Wi-Fi state)
Again pretty harmless as it only tells an app if you are connected to the internet via wi-fi or 3G. Usually used by apps who need to download files on your device and they want to make sure that you’re on Wi-fi so they can do it.
Modify global system settings
This is pretty important, but not very harmful. Basically, this permission allows an app to change any of your phone’s settings. However, not much harm can be done from this and usually there are few apps that require this for bad things.
Use credentials
A pretty important permission that allows the app to use your account. Although the password is usually protected, you should be very cautious when it comes to granting this permission to an app that you don’t trust.
Set preferred applications
This is usually used to set the preferred browser for the internet and other file opening defaults. A bad app can need this permission to set itself as the preferred one, but otherwise this is not a very dangerous permission.
Take photos or video
This allows the app to control your camera. Although this might sound like something spies would use to take photos or record videos when you are not aware of it, it actually is pretty harmless and many photo apps will need this permission
Now that you know about the Android App permissions, it’s a lot easier for you to filter out the bad apps that try to scam or spam you. Another thing to do if you are in doubt is to read the reviews – if somebody got a bad app, they will surely tell you. And, in the end, it’s better to be safe than sorry: if you are not 100% sure that the app is safe, it might be better not to install it. It’s impossible not to find one that is similarly awesome on Google Play!
