This app brings Android 12’s Privacy Dashboard to older phones

Android 12 is one of the biggest updates to the Android platform we have seen in years. The new release not only introduces a brand new design language with a dynamic theme engine, but it addresses many privacy woes that Android has long faced with features like the Privacy dashboard. Google first showed off Android 12’s new Privacy Dashboard at Google I/O 2021 and officially made it available in last month’s Android 12 Beta 2 release. If you wanted to try out the new Privacy dashboard but don’t have an eligible device to run Android 12 Beta 2, you’re in luck.

An Android developer who goes by the name Rushikesh Kamewar has developed an app called “Privacy Dashboard” to let users try out this Android 12-exclusive feature on older Android phones.

The app comes quite close to replicating Google’s implementation. It has an identical UI to Android 12’s Privacy dashboard and feels and works just like using the official thing. In our brief testing, the app seemed to work well. The app shows a timeline of when apps on your phone accessed location, microphone, and camera. Similar to Android 12, the app only shows data for the past 24 hours.

The app asks for the location and Accessibility permissions to keep track of which apps used camera and microphone. The developer says the app requires Accessibility permission to avoid having to directly access the camera and microphone.

The app also has Android 12-style privacy indicators, which will show a microphone or location icon in the upper right corner to alert you whenever an app is using those permissions. Moreover, you can also enable notification alerts to get notified whenever an app is using the respective permission.

The developer says the app may not always be accurate in identifying which apps accessed the camera, location, or microphone. For example, if System UI, launcher, or keyboard is running over the main app, the Privacy Dashboard app may mistakenly log these apps as using the permission instead of the main app. This is because the app is only able to check apps running in the foreground — it’s difficult for the app to detect apps running in the background.

Main features of the Privacy Dashboard app:

• Privacy Indicators (permission icon will appear in the top-right corner when permission is used)
• Light/Dark Theme.
• Dashboard for 24 hours app usage on the home screen.
• Detailed view of permission/app usage.
• No unnecessary permissions.

The app is completely free and without any ads, and the developer promises it will stay that way always. It works on any device running Android 7.0 and above. If you wish to give it a try, follow the download link given below.

Privacy Dashboard (Free⁺, Google Play) →

The post This app brings Android 12’s Privacy Dashboard to older phones appeared first on xda-developers.

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