This morning I noticed that an app was silently installed on my device. Android System Safetycore.
So what is this app for? Supposedly it is designed to blur any images that are sent to or from you the user.
Android Authority Article Snippet
Sensitive Content Warnings is another new Google Messages feature that Google is announcing today. It’s a feature that gives you more control over seeing and sending images that may contain nudity. Sensitive Content Warning blurs images that may contain nudity before viewing them, and it then prompts you with a “speed bump” that contains “help-finding resources and options, including to view the content.” When it’s enabled and you try to send or forward an image that may contain nudity, Google Messages will also show a “speed bump” that reminds you of the risks of sending nude imagery. - Android Authority
The feature seems to be geared towards google messages.
However why this needed to be a seperate app isn’t really known. Why not just a feature within the google messages app? Google gives no explanation.
Another Android Authority Snippet
Warnings check runs entirely on-device, it didn’t mention that it will actually be powered by an entirely separate app and not Google Messages itself. - Android Authority
Google claims it runs entirely on your phone. Whether that’s true? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
According to my device, the app can have internet access restricted to it (via phone settings) implying that the app does have internet access. Any apps that dont have internet access wouldn’t be in my settings list for restricting network access.
Here’s the developer page. Not much in terms of detail going on there.
Here is the app on Play store with its further lacking detail and currently plunging reviews. Interestingly it seems the app has many good odd sounding reviews. Furthermore, all the new reviews are very negative. The app was 3.8 this morning. Plunging.
The whole concept of the feature isn’t a bad one. However, I certainly dont wish for it to be automatically installed on my device as a seperate app. A feature that is supposedly for a messaging platform that I don’t even have activated on my device.
I removed it myself as it can be uninstalled. It doesn’t show up on play store by search, however you can look up the app link online and get a direct link to it. Which I put here.
Spyware? A helpful feature? I don’t want it on my phone anyways.
(Yes this is a repost, I hope it isn’t considered spam. Yes I did also delete the original one :/ . Goodnight 🥱!)
Not sure why everybody is upset that it’s a separate app. Google has been doing this with Android for almost a decade now in order to bring new functionality without needing to update the entire operating system.
I was gonna say, I feel like I’ve been seeing a new Android system app on a monthly basis when checking what needs updating in Google Play.
Literally my phone just now
They have been moving things to apps so they can substitute piecemeal the open source OS with their close sources: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
That article is 12 years old. It has only gotten worse.
I suppose but the other side is OEMs abandoning still functional hardware
Have to be honest first Android lost my support when they did their best to kill Micro SD cards then they decided to make connecting mtp only which absolutely ruined using a cable to transfer anything then came the head phone jack being removed.
The final nail on the coffin was scoped storage which made things so much slower it seemed absolutely ridiculous and also stopped you from being able to use files with the app you might have wanted.
At this point I’m kind of hoping something like Tizen or even Harmony Os takes over.
Wait how do I restrict apps’ access to the inthernet what phone lets me do that
You can do that with GrapheneOS.
Ok, I gotta change to Graphene asap
Keeping sealed iodine patches and band aids inside my leather wristbands.
Staying on the edge of the pit to catch anyone who falls or takes a hit.
🧷 safetycore 🧷
I never got it on mine but maybe thats because I have a fucken Samsung and I’ve already adb’d away all the shit I dont want
So the hotdog/not hotdog algorithm is finally out?
There are definitely good, non malicious reasons to have it as a separate app and that should actually be preferred. Off the top of my head:
- Separation of permissions - it only has the permissions it asks for instead of every permission messages has
- It can be disabled/removed without disabling messages
- it can be reused by other applications if that’s a desirable feature
Some people might actually like this: thinking of women getting unsolicited dick picks in particular
I found this in my app list, it hadn’t asked for any permissions. If it’s looking at every image I get, it’s doing so extremely discreetly.
Sus. Very sus.
so it will be able to restrict the messages you send…and cut off those it does not like?
and if in a year, no anti trump opinions are allowed…we won’t even be able to complain to our friends?
Ham radio time
The technician test is pretty easy if you remember some stuff from physics and you study. https://hamstudy.org/ (you don’t need to make an account here to practice).
I don’t understand why they’d make this a separate app and not a configurable setting in Messages.
Infrastructure to give Google system wide control over what content you can and cannot view.
Right, because if that’s what they wanted to do this is how they’d go about doing it rather than, let’s say, using any one of the dozen or so Google-controlled device administrator apps already on your phone.
Thanks for pointing this out, I had no idea. Removed it and left a review complaining.
If I had a nickel for every time I reported a pervy corporation to the ACCC, I’d have two nickels– which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Good ole Phineas and Ferb
Honestly, if the app was open-source so we can check it does not leak data, I would probably have no issue with it.
Making it a separate app makes sense if google wants to allow other apps to re-use the code. No reason to have the same functionality bundled into each app separately.
And the feature, as long as it is configurable, seems useful.
The auto-install is bad but understandable. As far as I am aware, there is no easy way to mark an app as a dependency of another app so it gets automatically installed only when needed. This should be fixed, but auto-install for all is not terrible temporary solution. This does not apply when the app is closed source and may steal your data.
I have a Pixel 7a on Google Fi service running Android 15 in the US.
I don’t see that app on my list of all apps nor when i search for it in the Play Store.
I got it on a Pixel 7, but I uninstalled it because I’m not trying to have Google spy on me for yet another reason.
