Throughout 2021, Google brought many new policies to protect the privacy and security of Android users. One of them by removing millions of applications that violate privacy from the Play Store.
According to Steve Kafka and Khawaja Shams and the Android Security and Privacy team, Google last year introduced several privacy-focused features, increased protection against malicious apps and developers, and improved SDK data security.
Google also continues to improve the capabilities of its machine learning system and review process on the Play Store, which has helped them kick the 1.2 million privacy-infringing apps. Google's efforts to eradicate fraudulent and malicious developers also led to the banning of 190,000 accounts.
To protect user data, Google is rolling out a new policy that limits access to user data and sensitive APIs for 98% of apps migrating to Android 11 or higher.
Google also prohibits the use of accessibility APIs in apps moving to Android 12, the side effect of which is that Google blocks third-party call recorder apps, as quoted from XDA Developers, Thursday (28/4/2022).
Last year, Google also introduced the Data Safety feature in the Play Store, which makes it easier for developers to describe what data apps access and collect. Currently, the feature is gradually being rolled out to Android users.
The Google blog post also describes a change to Advertising ID that prohibits the collection of Advertising ID and other device identifiers from all users in apps designed for children. The search engine giant has also introduced an option for users to delete their Advertising ID.
For Pixel phone users, Google has also introduced some additional features, such as the Security Hub. The Google Pixel also has a new machine learning model that can improve malware detection in Play Protect.