Manually provide geolocation to specific application

greendot

I'm planning on making the leap to GrapheneOS from a Samsung device. I'm trying to things plan out.

Is there a way to specify whether an application can use GPS/"location services" or manually specify a place on a map? For example, if I have an application that my employer wants me to use, how can I lock it to just one place instead of letting it follow me around?

unwat

greendot

That would be an awesome feature for this kind of situation, but unfortunately there isn't a way to do that natively on GrapheneOS.

Personally, if I were in your situation, I'd create a new user profile for work. The requested app could be installed in this profile and be used while on the clock, then once clocked out, end the profile's session. This way is less elegant than the way you mentioned, but it would be effective as long as you remember to end the profile's session every time.

Here's some information about how GrapheneOS improves Android's user profiles features: https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles

katemason

greendot Good questions. Following responses.

Kamaehuakanaloa

greendot Maybe I missed the notification, but I did not realize that GOS was supported on Samsung devices. According to the last time I reviewed the supported devices list, only Pixel phones > 3 were supported.

user

greendot

You could check out Fake traveler and Mock my GPS on F-Droid.

greendot

Kamaehuakanaloa I was asking about moving to a Pixel phone. It's a hard sell though because I'm giving up essential features like an SD card slot and a 3.5mm audio jack.

rustybird

user You could check out Fake traveler and Mock my GPS on F-Droid.

Seems risky to use a mock location provider if you're actually trying to trick an app though, because the app can see that the location is fake:

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Location#isFromMockProvider()
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Location#isMock()

greendot

rustybird So it would need to be OS level then, with some kind of pre-API hook.

mucr

rustybird if you use a GPS-simulation app (injecting simulated GPS data), how would another app know/see that location is fake?

rustybird

mucr how would another app know/see that location is fake?

By calling the linked API methods on the Location object:

rustybird https://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Location#isFromMockProvider()
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Location#isMock()

mucr

rustybird sorry to hear but good to know.

I have more Q's if you have time/patience:

your link says:

"If this location comes from the Android framework, this indicates that the location was provided by a test location provider, and thus may not be related to the actual location of the device."

Do all GPS sim app's location (have to) come from the Android framework?
Where does "real" GPS location come from, if not Android framework?
Any way to shim between the test output and other app input to alter the (apparent) source?

Thanks.

greendot

rustybird So basically GrapheneOS won't help one bit for privacy if you need to rely on Google Play (location services) if an application demands it. For example, if the Starbucks application uses geofencing via Google Play, GrapheneOS does not provide location privacy by providing a fake location to the Starbucks app. While the application is Sandboxed, you're still giving up privacy, but in a sandbox. Obviously I'm making up the analogy using the Starbucks app but there are a ton of applications that won't work at all unless you give them location services. And if the Android API supports checking against simulated locations, then you really have no location privacy. GrapheneOS would need to let you control what the API gives to applications.