this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Material You is a privacy issue. It gives a reason for people to have a custom wallpaper.Because of the WallpaperColors API, any third party app can use the wallpaper to generate a unique ID based on that
You make this sound mich worse than it is:
Source: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/WallpaperColors
Android really needs a sandbox feature for apps you don't trust (or just any by Meta)
Or Google...
You can leverage the work profile with something like Shelter
https://gitea.angry.im/PeterCxy/Shelter
Can we have unlimited sandboxes for each app though?
Nope, one sandbox per device
Ah I see
Haven't tried Shelter but I am using Insular from F-Droid for just that and it works great.
I'm pretty sure apps can just grab your phone's MAC address
You can for older devices (so your app has to target only those I think) but with added permissions that you will definitely question It seems it is more complex or impossible now: https://developer.android.com/training/articles/user-data-ids#mac-addresses
So it doesn't simply supply the generated palette from the system? (I never tried implementing Material You)
It does
Ah alright, so it is a problem because it can be used as another bit of information to construct a more refined fingerprint of the user?
Uhm.. yeah..., sure, could certainly be another data point for that. I think you can also set static colora thought.
Yes, though now that the option exists setting it to anything would discriminate you from the group that set it the other way, I assume that the OP also considered that as problematic
I didn't throw rocks at Material You for being an actual privacy leak but just thinking about the fact that it gives a reason for users to want to use a custom wallpaper instead of default or unicolor I woild have fell for it if I was not already aware of that WallpaperColors API
Wouldn't this ID change every time the user changes their wallpaper?
It does. But it also means that if you want to reset the tracking you would need (for every app) to also clear the storage of the app and logging off and log back in with a different account before starting to use the app again
Are you this insufferable always?