• General
  • Google Play Services, WhatsApp, Facebook, what privacy am I giving up?

I am sure this has been asked many times but if I install the full Google Play Services and apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram all on the same profile what privacy am I giving up?

I will not use a Google Account and will download apps using the Aurora Store.

I know apps can see what other apps are installed.

I have to be careful with the clipboard and my passwords.

What else should I be aware of?

Let me just start by saying that GrapheneOS is the best environment/OS to run these apps, so if you're going to use them anyway, it should be on GrapheneOS.

Beyond that, as you correctly mentioned, you should assume apps within the same profile can enumerate each other.

Furthermore, be aware that apps in the same profile can also communicate with each other if both apps consent to that.

With all that said, apps are still fully sandboxed and are fundamentally only going to have access to what you provide them. My rule is that if I'm allowing an app access to something, I'm trusting it to do the right thing with that data. I know that might be hard to do since these seem to be apps that you fundamentally distrust, but that's how it is.

If you don't want Whatsapp to have access to a specific contact, make sure that contact has not been added to the profile that Whatsapp will access the contacts of. Same thing with your files, although storage scopes makes it so you can have granular access over which folders/files an app can access, even if it wants access to everything.

  • GI1 replied to this.

    matchboxbananasynergy Furthermore, be aware that apps in the same profile can also communicate with each other if both apps consent to that.

    Thank you for the reply. What can I do to check and stop apps communicating with each other? Is there a way to remove consent?

    Most apps I only have the Network and Notifications selected.

      GI1 The way to stop two apps from communicating with each other is to place them in different profiles, because apps cannot communicate across profiles.

      This is not a nefarious feature, but something that apps do all the time, even when you don't understand that it's happening.

        matchboxbananasynergy okay, I have found it's not really practical to use multiple user profiles and switch between. Some of these apps I use all the time. It is fine for apps I don't use that often.

        It is a shame that is the only way.

        They are sandboxed from each other. Is there no way we can know what they communicating with each other? It should be fairly limited and there is no account on the phone. I believe they can't access user accounts and information from other apps.

          GI1

          That would be a pretty cool feature, a per app toggle that allows/disallows communication with other apps.

          I’m sure it substantially more complicated than that though :)