this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
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What a bs permission to have been invented.
It should be it's own special network permission or something but what the hell does that have to do with the general meaning of "location"?.
Just allow the app to see what SSID I am connected to if I want to allow that
Sry for having to endure my rant
It's actually a bit informative. I believe Android approximates location using the SSID/WiFi information, so it's not just network that it's used for.
Hm...Still so.
It should be its fully own permission to allow even if it belongs both to location and networking.
I think the idea is that it is not something separately securable? I don't disagree, I'd like to be able to disallow any app not explicitly granted permission to use any method to determine my location. Unfortunately if Google can scan WiFi and figure out your location, anything with access to WiFi can too maybe?
I don't know. I love technology but this fucking surveillance state situation is really getting to me. Routers using WiFi signal passing through your body to identify and locate you regardless of whether or not you are carrying any tech and all the other shit I don't know about... ugh.
Yep. That's what ai want.
Yeah, like other people covered, it's unfortunate but also very important. It's easy to tie "visible wifi networks" to "surprisingly precise location on globe" in many places, so the permission is named for the worst case scenario. Yes, the app might just be looking for a wifi, but it also could use that same information to locate you, so it's the location permission. Sensible.
If they wanted to support just this one feature without requiring a location permission, they could maybe have an API that is "are you currently connected to this opaque token" API where the app can ask "am I connected" and is just told "yes" or "no". That's probably safe enough. And then I could register the app with my wifi without the app even knowing what my Wifi is, it just gets a unique but random string.
The same is true of bluetooth. If I can list nearby bluetooth, I can see that speaker and this TV and guess location. But there could be an API that hides that, there just isn't currently