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Comment by pdkl95 | Hacker News Reader

I find it hard to believe that more than 1 app in 4 has a legitimate need for (fine!) location data.

    android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION    |  798122 |    28.43
    android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION  |  770878 |    27.46

There might be a legitimate reason that 1 app in 8 needs access to the camera, but that also seems a high.

    android.permission.CAMERA                  |  436581 |    15.55

not an android user, but plenty of iOS apps want to access the camera for 'ease of use' things.

* Banking apps/shopping want access to the camera to scan your debit/credit/gift cards, instead of having to type it out.

* messaging apps/email etc want access to the camera so you can msg/email photos

* games that are vaguely 'social' and want to have a real photo of you as an in-game avatar etc.

> Banking apps/shopping want access to the camera to scan your debit/credit/gift cards, instead of having to type it out.

I forgot about that type of use, which makes the camera usage rate a lot more reasonable.

It's READ_PHONE_STATE that worries me, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that phone meta-data? (Who is calling, when, etc?)

You need this ominous sounding permission to intervene and pause an app when a call comes in.