Question on cross-app tracking

Verticalgravity

As title says. I’m coming from iPhone and I want to know the Android/GOS take on cross app tracking.

On iOS there is a relatively recent feature that (at least on paper) blocks apps from tracking what you do on other apps.

What’s that like on Android 14 and on current GOS?

For GOS context, assume I’m talking about apps within the same profile.
Thanks!

ryrona

Verticalgravity What is that feature called on iOS? I have not heard of them blocking IPC between apps before. If they have support for that now, that is clearly very interesting.

Android does not support blocking IPC between apps within the same profile. GrapheneOS developers are working on a feature called App Scopes that adds support for this, but it may still be many months away of being production ready.

Verticalgravity

ryrona referring to this https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph4f4cbd242/ios

Been around since iOS 17 if I recall correctly. There was a whole fuss around it when it debuted, Meta tried to sue apple into disabling this and failed, so it clearly works to an extent

ryrona

Verticalgravity Oh okay. Apparently iOS has a builtin functionality to allow apps to track you, by giving the apps and websites access to a unique device identifier for your device. That setting disables access to that unique identifier, so apps cannot know they run on the same device as another app.

GrapheneOS blocks access to all unique device identifier by default. There is no such identifier especially made to allow apps to track activity on GrapheneOS and will never be.

So, iOS appears to not block IPC between apps at all. They even say apps by the same company can track activity across their apps on the site you linked.

So GrapheneOS is way ahead of iOS in blocking cross app tracking apparently. And as soon access to DRM unique identifier is blocked and App Scopes implemented, tracking based on anything else than IP address will be impossible on GrapheneOS.

DeletedUser88

ryrona Oh okay. Apparently iOS has a builtin functionality to allow apps to track you, by giving the apps and websites access to a unique device identifier for your device. That setting disables access to that unique identifier, so apps cannot know they run on the same device as another app.

Important to note that this is equivalent of the Advertising ID which is not disabled by default when you install Sandboxed Google Play.

treenutz68

ryrona

One question related to this. If I install gmail, google voice, google play services, and google meet apps on my grapheneos device, I thought they all do communicate and know the other logins?

Probably9857

treenutz68 If I install gmail, google voice, google play services, and google meet apps on my grapheneos device, I thought they all do communicate and know the other logins?

My understanding is that you login to Play Services, and the other Google apps all share that same login / session.

If you are using different Google accounts for different apps (I'll assume you can, but I don't know that for sure), Google will know that those apps are all on the same device.

They all communicate with Play Services, and that communicates with Google, so Google (the company) can absolutely aggregate all the various app's data.

If you are asking if the apps themselves are directly aware of each other, that is unclear (I'd guess probably not, but they definitely could be)...I'm not sure why that would really be a concern though, considering Google definitely knows.

ryrona

treenutz68 One question related to this. If I install gmail, google voice, google play services, and google meet apps on my grapheneos device, I thought they all do communicate and know the other logins?

Yes, they will. There is no way to hinder this today. Once App Scopes is implemented this can be blocked.

de0u

treenutz68 If I install gmail, google voice, google play services, and google meet apps on my grapheneos device, I thought they all do communicate and know the other logins?

At present, the apps in each user profile are expected to cooperate. It is expected that if you sign in to a Google account to join a meeting that will also sign you in to Google Voice. Likewise, signing in to an Amazon account for reading Kindle content is expected to sign you in for shopping.

The expectation behind this part of the Android design is that most people want this behavior, and that people who wish to avoid it can use multiple profiles (despite the various glitches).

de0u

ryrona Once App Scopes is implemented this can be blocked.

Personally I will be surprised if this ships before summer (at the earliest!). My sense is that it has turned out to be more complex than first hoped.

Also, personally, while I think App Scopes could improve confidence that privacy-respecting apps don't cheat, I suspect people who hope it will convert privacy-invasive apps into being privacy-respecting will be disappointed. There are already apps that require the ability to talk to Play Services to launch. Blocking them via App Scopes would just cause them to not launch, whereas putting them with Play in another profile would enable them to run.

Please note that I do not speak for the GrapheneOS project.