Last month Google announced many new features of Android 12, including the system in-built feature Privacy Dashboard. This new feature lets the users know exactly Which application uses which permission and when. You can track down any applications using your phone’s camera and microphone without your permission. Although Google does not give you all the details about these applications in Privacy Dashboard in Android 12, it is nonetheless a great feature.
Let’s look at what Privacy Dashboard is and how you can access it from your device.
What is a Privacy Dashboard?
The new feature of the Android 12 lets the user keep track of all the apps that have been granted permission of your device’s privacy. The Privacy Dashboard shows you a
timeline of apps that have used your phone’s resources such as camera, microphone, notification, location in the past 24 hours. With this new feature, you can easily detect Malicious third-party applications that can harm your phone.
Privacy Dashboard lets you track your phone’s Location, Camera, Microphone, Body sensors, Calendar, Call logs, Contacts, Files and media, Nearby devices, Phone, Physical activity, and SMS. However, you won’t see if any app is using all the permissions or not. For now, Google is not giving access to every detail regarding your phone’s permission and privacy. That feature may come in future Android updates.
How to access the Privacy Dashboard in Android 12?
If you have an Android 12 device, you can easily access the Privacy Dashboard from your phone. Here is how to use the privacy dashboard in a few simple steps:
- First things first, head to the Settings app.
- After that, find and go to the Privacy option.
- On that new tab, you will see an option Privacy dashboard. Tap on it, and you will be able to view a timeline of all the apps that have accessed your device’s resources in the last 24 hours.
You can tap on individual apps to see which specific permission the app has used. You can also remove that app from using your phone’s permission from the option “Manage Permission”.
How can you use the Privacy Dashboard on any Android device?
For now, only users who have Android 12 on their devices will be able to use the privacy dashboard. The Android 12 has not come to all the popular Android devices. Only Google Pixel users so far have access to Android 12. So you will likely get this feature later in the future. But if you do want to check out this feature or just want to know which apps are using your phone’s permission, you can do it using a similar third-party app. Android 12 update offers in-build features of Privacy Dashboard. However, since the third-party app is not an inbuilt feature, it does not let you know every detail accurately, but it’s useful nonetheless. The app shows you a timeline of apps using your phone’s permissions. You can download this app from Google Play Store.
Is the Privacy Dashboard App Safe?
Nowadays, many third-party apps are taking advantage of your phone’s permission and using your phone’s resources as they want. So if you think whether the privacy dashboard app in your Android 12 is safe or not, then you don’t have to think twice. Because this inbuilt feature is entirely safe, and it does not share any of your personal details with Google or with anybody for that matter. Google’s Android team made it so that you can track all the third-party apps in your phone that have been granted permission for your device. You can see whether these apps are using your device’s resources without your knowledge or not. You can also manage all the permission for apps as well. You can disable or revoke permissions from those third-party apps.
So it’s definitely a pretty good feature that Google has included in the Android 12. Hope, this article has helped you understand more about this new feature.
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