What is Privacy Dashboard on Android 12? Why can it be considered a 'breakthrough' in terms of privacy?

Security and privacy are increasingly becoming major concerns for smartphone users in general. Apple is one of the pioneering manufacturers in launching larger, more optimal security features on its devices. Apple's move has received very positive feedback from the user community, and this makes another big name, Google, of course not able to ignore it.

What is Privacy Dashboard?

Privacy Dashboard is a privacy feature introduced by Google for Android 12. Through the Privacy Dashboard, users can clearly see which apps are accessing their data, as well as choose which information applications are allowed to access.

In addition, the Privacy Dashboard also provides real-time information about access activity related to various types of personal data on the device. Users can monitor private data access on the device for 24 hours, and decide if they need to modify permissions for specific apps. Not only third-party apps, even Google apps will be fully listed.

How does Privacy Dashboard work?

As the name suggests, Privacy Dashboard is basically a dashboard, allowing users to manage everything privacy related on their Android device. The Privacy Dashboard page will show which apps are using which permissions, and how often they are used.

When accessing the Privacy Dashboard in the Settings menu, you will see a management page open with two different sections. The first is the pie chart at the top of the screen. This graph allows you to quickly get a sense of what privacy has been used the most by apps on your device in the last 24 hours.

For example, in the example you can see that the 'Location' access is used the most, followed by 'Camera' and 'Micro'. This graph correlates with the list of permissions in the section below, so if you expand to 'See Other Permissions', those permissions will also appear in the chart.

Here are all the permissions that can be tracked in the Privacy Dashboard:

1. Location
2. Camera
3. Micro
4. Sensor
5. Calendar
6. call logs
7. Phonebook
8. Files and Media
9. Nearby devices
10. Phone
11. Physical activity
12. SMS messages

Below the chart are permissions in the form of a list. Each permission is labeled with how many apps have used it in the last 24 hours. Click on a specific permission to see detailed usage progress over that 24-hour period.

The 'Manage Permission' button will take you to a menu where you can adjust how specific apps use permissions on the device.

Where to find Privacy Dashboard on Android?

As mentioned above, Privacy Dashboard was introduced in Android 12. You will need a phone or tablet running Android 12 or higher to be able to use this feature.

First, swipe down from the top edge of the screen to bring up the quick settings menu, then tap the gear icon.

In the Settings menu, scroll down to the ' Privacy ' section

Find the ' Privacy Dashboard ' entry and click on it.

David Pac

Update 17 June 2021