Description
Hi! There is a new Google Play Photo and Video Permissions Policy taking effect on August 31, 2024. There are two ways to comply with this:
Remove READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions and use a system picker if access to photos and videos is infrequent.
Pass an access review in Play Console if you need broad access to photos and videos.
Currently, these permissions are added to our app from the Zoom SDK. From my testing, it seems that Zoom already uses the Android photo picker and so shouldn’t need these permissions as broad access isn’t required.
Could Zoom remove these permissions if possible in an upcoming version to comply with the new Google Play policy?
@chunsiong.zoom following up on this one to see if there’s any insight your team can provide regarding the READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing this with us, @dan1994 ! Can you provide any links to the changelog for the Google Play Photo and Video Permissions Policy that’s taking effect? I’d be happy to share this with the team.
Thanks @dan1994 ! For the Meeting SDK, a justification for requiring access would be to allow users to share images or videos through screen sharing. Have you provided any justification to the app reviewers? If so, what feedback was shared from the appropriate access review?
Thanks for the information. We have not been forced to provide justification yet so we haven’t provided any. For the sharing images and videos through screen sharing, it looks like it uses the native photo/video picker provided by google. Our understanding is that usage of this picker shouldn’t require the permissions. Can you confirm whether or not it’s accurate that this part of the zoom sdk uses the native photo/video picker?
Just following up on this one to see if there’s any chance those two permissions could be removed from the sdk, given that it seems like the sdk is using the native photo picker which doesn’t require them.
Thank you for following up, @dan1994! The SDK is based on the Zoom Client, which makes adjusting individual permissions more complex than it might seem. So any changes would need to be carefully considered to ensure they don’t lead to unexpected issues across the platform. Here is Zoom’s SDK minimum version policy for more details about the SDK release cycle.
SDK minimum version policy
Please feel free to share any additional thoughts or concerns you have - your input is valuable as we continue to refine our services.
@donte.zoom Thanks for the information. I have a few follow up questions
Are the READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions only used for sharing images and videos through screen sharing? If so, and our app doesn’t utilize screen sharing is it okay for us to remove those permissions from our app’s manifest?
Does Zoom’s use case meet google’s criteria for using the permissions. Looking from the outside it seems like for this use case it’s more appropriate to use the native photo picker based on the screenshot below from google’s documentation. Is there any information we could add to our declaration to help explain why Zoom’s use case meets their criteria?
@donte.zoom just following up on my two questions above as the deadline for submitting the declaration is October 31st.
Are the READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions only used for sharing images and videos through screen sharing? If so, and our app doesn’t utilize screen sharing is it okay for us to remove those permissions from our app’s manifest?
We would appreciate any additional information you could provide for us regarding whether or not Zoom’s usage of the READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions meet google’s criteria in the screenshot below of a “core use case that requires persistent or frequent photo/video access of files located in shared storage”.
