Comment by WhyNotHugo
18 hours ago
This is a common approach to "privacy" taken by orgs like Google.
You don't get to access or export your own data in order to protect your privacy, but Google still gets 100% access to it.
Some messaging apps do the same and won't let you take a screenshot of your own conversations. Like, someone sent me an address, but I can't take a screenshot to "protect my privacy".
Facebook app does the same. All exported photos do not have any EXIF, but you'd be damn well sure they are using that EXIF for themselves.
Seems to be quite simple, an App which wants to access location info from images just needs to set the permission for it.
Chrome doesn't seem to request that permission, so the OS doesn't provide the location-data to the app. So Chrome rather ended up in this state by doing nothing, not by explicitly doing something...
If your app targets Android 10 (API level 29) or higher and needs to retrieve unredacted EXIF metadata from photos, you need to declare the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission in your app's manifest, then request this permission at runtime.
Source: https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m...
Which messaging apps are those? I have only seen such behavior for one-time photos, where it makes sense (although one-time photos are security theater because nothing prevents you from taking a photo of the screen with another device).
Imagine my surprise when I attempted to record the iPhone mirroring application, which was running on macOS. Apple did a great job on their DRM because I simply recorded a black screen while I was attempting to play back a video from an app on the phone.
I'm sure it's given some businesses the confidence to invest in iOS app development, but it felt bad.
I think that's for apps like Netflix or other movie streaming apps being recorded for piracy?
Yes, or a video editing app that wants you to buy it.
I'm not _entirely_ upset Apple is encouraging the market to develop high-quality solutions by allowing them to protect their revenue.
But it felt bad as if they were reaching into my Mac.
My iPhone is Apple’s playground. They let me use it. But I own my Mac, and if my eyes see something on the screen it feels dumb to send Tim Apple and Reed Hastings into my homeoffice telling me “no no get a capture card(?) or set up a DSLR to record your screen. But no direct recording big guy!”