android.permission.READ_CONTACTS



android.permission.WRITE_CONTACTS



android.permission.READ_SMS



android.permission.WRITE_SMS



android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE



android.permission.CALL_PHONE



android.permission.SEND_SMS



android.permission.RECEIVE_SMS



android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED



android.permission.WAKE_LOCK



android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE



android.permission.SUBSCRIBED_FEEDS_READ



android.permission.READ_SYNC_SETTINGS



android.permission.WRITE_SYNC_SETTINGS



android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS



android.permission.INTERNET



android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION



android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION



android.permission.READ_CALL_LOG



android.permission.WRITE_CALL_LOG



android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO



android.permission.SET_PREFERRED_APPLICATIONS



android.permission.WRITE_APN_SETTINGS



android.permission.READ_CALENDAR



android.permission.WRITE_CALENDAR



android.permission.KILL_BACKGROUND_PROCESSES



android.permission.RESTART_PACKAGES



android.permission.MANAGE_ACCOUNTS



android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS



android.permission.MODIFY_PHONE_STATE



android.permission.CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE



android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE



android.permission.ACCESS_LOCATION_EXTRA_COMMANDS



android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE



android.permission.CHANGE_WIFI_STATE



android.permission.VIBRATE



android.permission.READ_LOGS



android.permission.GET_TASKS



android.permission.EXPAND_STATUS_BAR



com.android.browser.permission.READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS



com.android.browser.permission.WRITE_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS



android.permission.CAMERA



com.android.vending.BILLING



android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW



android.permission.BATTERY_STATS



android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS



com.kms.free.permission.C2D_MESSAGE



com.google.android.c2dm.permission.RECEIVE

I wrote a piece a few days ago about how the Meitu app asked for a bunch of permissions in ways that might concern people, but which were not actually any worse than many other apps. The fact that Android makes it so easy for apps to obtain data that's personally identifiable is of concern, but in the absence of another stable device identifier this is the sort of thing that capitalism is inherently going to end up making use of. Fundamentally, this is Google's problem to fix.Around the same time, Kaspersky , the Russian anti-virus company, wrote a blog post that warned people about this specific app. It was framed somewhat misleadingly - "reading, deleting and modifying the data in your phone's memory" would probably be interpreted by most people as something other than "the ability to modify data on your phone's external storage", although it ends with some reasonable advice that users should ask why an app requires some permissions.So, to that end, here are the permissions that Kaspersky request on Android:Every single permission that Kaspersky mention Meitu having? They require it as well. And a lot more. Why does Kaspersky want the ability to record audio? Why does it want to be able to send SMSes? Why does it want to read my contacts? Why does it need my fine-grained location? Why is it able to modify my settings?There's no reason to assume that they're being malicious here. The reasons that these permissions exist at all is that there are legitimate reasons to use them, and Kaspersky may well have good reason to request them. But they don't explain that, and they do literally everything that their blog post criticises (including explicitly requesting the phone's IMEI). Why should we trust a Russian company more than a Chinese one?The moral here isn't that Kaspersky are evil or that Meitu are virtuous. It's that talking about application permissions is difficult and we don't have the language to explain to users what our apps are doing and why they're doing it, and Google are still falling far short of where they should be in terms of making this transparent to users. But the other moral is that you shouldn't complain about the permissions an app requires when you're asking for even more of them because it just makes you look stupid and bad at your job.