Privacy best practices
Ensuring Android App Security and Privacy: Best Practices
Android places a strong focus on enabling users to benefit from the latest innovations while keeping their security and privacy as top priorities. As an Android app developer, it's crucial to adhere to best practices in permissions, data handling, and user privacy.
1. Pay Attention to Permissions
Building trust with your users starts with being transparent and giving them control over their app experience. Request only the minimum permissions necessary for your app's features. Periodically review requested permissions to ensure your app still requires them.
Android continually introduces privacy-conscious ways to access data without demanding permissions. Respect users' choices by not persistently requesting denied permissions.
2. Graceful Degradation
When users deny or revoke a permission, ensure your app gracefully degrades. For instance, disable a feature like voice input if microphone permission is not granted.
3. Minimize Location Access
If your app requests location permission, provide users with clear explanations of how their location data benefits them. Avoid requesting location permissions if your app can function without them. When accessing location data, do so while the app is visible to the user to maintain transparency.
Background location access should be critical to the app's core functionality and evident to users. For user-initiated ongoing tasks that require location access, start a foreground service before your app goes into the background.
4. Handle Data Securely
Maintain transparency and security when handling sensitive data. Notify users when and why your app collects, uses, or shares sensitive information. Always use secure network connections, and encrypt data at rest using Android's built-in credential encryption.
Sensitive data should be stored in your app's private directory within internal storage. When passing sensitive data to another app, employ explicit intents for one-time data access, restricting the other app's access. Avoid including sensitive data in logcat messages or app log files.
Even when your app is in the foreground, it's a best practice to display real-time indicators when capturing data from the microphone or camera.
5. Use Resettable Identifiers
Respect user privacy and employ resettable identifiers. Avoid accessing persistent identifiers like IMEI and device serial numbers on Android 10 (API level 29) and higher.
For user profiling and ads-related use cases, use Advertising ID, ensuring compliance with Google Play requirements. Always honor user preferences regarding advertisement tracking for personalization.
Leverage the secure settings Android ID (SSAID) to share states between your apps without requiring user sign-ins.
Adhering to these best practices not only enhances your Android app's security and privacy but also builds trust with your users, resulting in a more positive user experience.