Google will remove applications with access to SMS and calls

Google also knows that you're tired of giving permissions to access functions of your Android mobile to all kinds of applications. A function with which you are supposed to have the power of your data, privacy and security, since only you decide which applications can access data such as the photos on your mobile, calls, the camera or even the microphone. Well, given the abuse of some developers and the innocence or ignorance of the users, Google has decided to hack and end all applications that ask for permission to access SMS messages and calls from your Android mobile.And there is no apparent logical reason for applications not specific to these two areas to request this permission.

This is why, in the coming weeks, Google will remove all apps from the Google Play Store that have not given good reasons for requesting these permissionsFocusing exclusively on permissions to access SMS messages and control of the mobile call log.

Of course, Google has given application developers 90 days notice. These have had to fill out a form with which to explain the reasons why their applications request these permissions from the user. A justification that, from now on and for the next few weeks, can save your applications from this possibly massive deletion of the Google Play Store, which will be extended until March of this same year.

Permissions and applications

Little by little, Google has made Android users more involved and aware of the importance of managing permissions. For years it has done so with a warning message in the Google Play Store that specifies what permissions an application will request before being installed. Later, more recently, the version 6.0 Marshmallow of Android onwards, launches warning messages to the user the first time that the application is going to make use of some permission.

In this way, it is the user who has final power to decide if the application accesses the information handled by the terminal. An awareness that will have allowed, in many cases, to prevent some abusive applications from collecting data that is not necessary for their correct operation.

And you have to keep in mind what each application can do and what it needs to do it Because, surely, exceeding those functions poses a risk to the privacy or security of the user. In other words, under the guise of a useful application, the theft of user information may be concealed.

With this decision, Google intends that the information from SMS messages and calls from the terminal will only be used by Google's own official messaging and calling applications.