In Android 11, Google introduced a feature called permission auto-reset that automatically reset permissions in infrequently-used apps. Now, it is bringing this functionality to literally billions of more apps by making it available in Android 6 and above.
“This feature helps protect user privacy by automatically resetting an app’s runtime permissions, which are permissions that display a prompt to the user when requested, if the app isn’t used for a few months,” Google’s Peter Visontay and Bessie Jiang explain. “Starting in December 2021, we are expanding this to billions more devices. This feature will automatically be enabled on devices with Google Play services that are running Android 6.0 or higher.”
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This feature will be auto-enabled in Android 11 and newer. But users will be able to manually enable it on older Android versions too, Google says. And it’s only somewhat related to, and compatible with, a coming Android 12 feature called app hibernation that applies restrictions to unused apps