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Comment by firefoxd | Hacker News Reader

There needs to be a feature on android to give fake gps data on a real device. This would be useful for any app that requires gps for no good reason.

If your flashlight app needs gps to turn on, no problem. You are currently on mount Kilimanjaro.

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Android warns the user that location related permissions are required. The issue is, is that this is required for Bluetooth scanning and the app developer abuses this by collecting other 'location data'. The app developer even tries to explain to the user with a pop up saying (paraphrasing) "click accept, so bluetooth will work".

Or they just lie to you 'we need your location data to do <sensible thing you want>' (like say localized weather or nearby starbucks or whatever) however they then turn around and basically track you constantly and sell your data to all comers.

This is exactly what what they did here.

That said, the attention of the blog post seems to have triggered them to disclose now on the Apple [1] and Google Play [2] store that they are indeed collecting your location data. They got away with lying for quite some time, over 100k downloads on Play store and 1.57k reviews.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/au/app/battery-monitor-bm2/id11154920...

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.dc.batt...

This is horrendous. Android does it to make it clear, actually this is my best guess, that having access to WiFi and BT controls might leak location data based on, I assume again, where those BT and WiFi devices are located - ie by some kind of reverse search. And since that might leak why the hell not force user to grant the location permission anyway when they want BT/WiFi functionality.

I mean this is just retarded design. Unless there’s a “technical need” to use GPS while dealing with BT or WiFi that I am not aware of that.

There is a "mock location" feature in developer settings. As I understand it, you download an app that provides "mock location data" and select it, then it will provide mock locations in whatever manner it was written to do.

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