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This would be easier to control if Android would allow users an option to see historically what resources the app requested and how it processed them (just list them, used them, processed them).


I'm not sure about recent Android version, but on my 3~4 years old Alcatel with Android v4.3, there is already a rudimentary preference menu listing the last accesses of app to resources (eg "Instagram accessed contact list 3 hours ago"). The menu is not easily accessible, I found it by chance.


You're probably seeing the App Ops menu.

That appeared in 4.3, hardly accessible. Was made somewhat more accessible in 4.4 and then was patched out in something like 4.4.1 or so. I presume, some Google exec got to know of it and demanded it removed.

Starting with Android 6, there's the new permission model, meaning that a similar screen is added to the settings of each app, but it doesn't show when an access happened (or at least it does not for me on Android 8.1).


DTEK by Blackberry app can track/notify on foreground and background permissions usage (but there's no data from before you install it). To log how requested data is actually being used by an app doesn't sound possible to me.


Probably not, but the method of "fetch" should be possible - either it lists resources, grabs variables, grabs whole images etc.


Ah I see, yes it would be great if Android made that info available.




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