In 2022, Google eliminated about 3,500 personal loan apps from the Play Store app in India. The step was taken after the apps were found breaching the Play policy requirements, the firm publicized in its newest annual Play Protect report.
For the people who aren’t aware, Play Protect is built for security for Android devices that scans apps for malicious behavior and alerts users about possibly harmful apps.
Strict Policy For Personal Loan App Developers
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After modifying the Play Store developer program policy for financial services apps in 2021, Google 2022 rolled out some new requirements for developers providing personal loans in India as helpers on behalf of NBFCs and banks.
Google revealed that “Last year, we rolled out more requirements for developers providing personal loans in India as facilitators in the name of NBFCs and banks, needing them also remarkably to reveal the names of all their collaborator NBFCs.
Also, give a live URL to the specific websites of partner NBFCs and banks where they are registered as an official agent, as part of the Personal Loan App Declaration.”
Policy Breaching Apps Got Restricted
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In 2022, Google restricted 1.43 million policy-breaching apps from setting their foot into the Play Store.
The firm reveals that this was “partly because of the new and enhanced security options and policy advancements, jointly with our continuous investments in machine learning systems and app review process. ”
Google carries on to fight against malicious developers as well as fraud rings, restricting 173K bad accounts and blocking more than $2 billion in fraudulent and abusive transactions.
No Sensitive Permissions
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Sensitive permissions are something that permits apps to use users’ personal information, like contacts, location, camera, microphone, SMS, and call logs.
Google believes that by improving the security and policies of the Android platform, and by giving guidance and training to developers, the firm put break over 500K apps from requesting permissions that can compromise the privacy and data of the users in the last three years.
Security Weakness Fixed
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App security enhancements aided developers fix 500K security weaknesses influencing about 300K apps with correlated installations estimated to 250B, as per Google.
“We also rolled out Google Play SDX Index to aid developers calculate an SDK’s dependability and safety and make informed decisions about if an SDK is correct for their business and their users,” Google added.