Security & Privacy | What Does The Scan Device Feature Do?

ttmp12

The title says it all. What really happens when I press the "Scan Device" button? Should I do it? Is it useless?

Thanks in advance!

pml

Likely just acting as a refresh button.
Keep in mind this is simply an educated guess

ttmp12

pml Refresh what?

user539

It scans the device

DeletedUser87

Good Lord, never have I seen a thread with so few information and so many vague answers.
Which app are you even talking about?

DeletedUser76

DeletedUser87 It's about the new security feature in the Settings app. You can access it by Settings > Security & privacy, and there will be a green button and icon saying 'Looks good', "No issues found", and "Scan device".

I personally think GrapheneOS should just remove this whole section as it's useless for GrapheneOS. I tried to change the "Looks good" status to something else by tweaking settings, and the only time it changed to yellow was when I disabled the entire device lock methods.

fid02

From the official GrapheneOS account on Discord:

it checks for issues like not having a screen lock... it probably already updates automatically for any of the changes and it has scan to make you feel better but it does properly recheck

I notice that if your screen lock is set to 'None' or 'Swipe', the Security & privacy centre will show you a big yellow warning text "Your device may be at risk" and tells you to set a screen lock for added security. Might be a minor thing for people who consider setting a screen lock to be an obvious thing to do, but still a nice reminder for people who haven't thought that setting a lock is useful.

DeletedUser87 Good Lord, never have I seen a thread with so few information and so many vague answers.
Which app are you even talking about?

Not clear why this post is phrased crossly. I think a simple question would've sufficed.

DeletedUser87

DeletedUser76 oh yeah, that thing. I agree it's pretty useless. On the Stock Pixel OS it checks quite a few things related to the Google account and I think Play Protection, but on GOS it's basically useless.

fid02

Just also discovered that this feature will notify you if an app has been granted access to use Location "all the time". I was given a notification about an app I granted this permission to yesterday.