Android 12’s new privacy indicators show when apps are listening or monitoring you, in a move experts say could change the way we use our smart devices.
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The full release of Android 12 isn’t expected until later this year. A recent look at the second developer preview revealed new privacy indicators that let you see if an app has access to your camera, microphone, or location. Apple recently released a similar feature with iOS 14 , but it appears that Google will be providing more in-depth information and showing full context on all the system features in use at the time. Experts say this is just the next step in users taking back control over how their data is shared.
“This is going to fundamentally change how users think about their apps and devices,” Nick Potvin, CEO and founder of Marketing Privacy, told Lifewire via email. “In the past, data collection and privacy were not very well-known. Now, data collection and tracking practices are front and center, giving users the ability to opt out.”
Privacy notifications are something Google has been working on for a while, but this is the first time we've seen the company tackle them. Similar to iOS 14, the indicators will appear along the notification bar at the top of your Android phone's screen. Unlike iOS, however, Android's appear to feature the icon for the specific feature being used at the time.
