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Will apps that only use the Google Fitness SDK to read steps be affected by the April 27th specification change of Google Fit? We build by v11.8.0, do we need to change to v20 and distribute to the Google Play Store before the April 27th?

If I don't re-release the app, will I no longer be able to get step count data from the app?

email as follows:

We also suggest you follow the next steps before April 2021, to ensure you will be ready for these changes:

  • Make sure all the scopes used by your app are declared in OAuth consent screen of API Console, including any newly announced scopes
  • Be ready to resubmit for verification on or after April 27, 2021. Our team will reach out to you via email to kick-off this process
  • Update your Android app to build using Fitness SDK v20.0.0 or above
  • Test your app by opting-in to new requirements

Authorization, heart rate and sleep updates 2020

Andy Turner
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Ryoji
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    I’m voting to close this question because https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/255745/why-cant-i-ask-customer-service-related-questions – Zoe Apr 12 '21 at 08:36

3 Answers3

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For reading steps, if the application was requesting SCOPE_ACTIVITY_READ scope earlier, no application change is required. But the application need to apply for verification process to use SCOPE_ACTIVITY_READ scope, as all fitness read scopes access are updated to Restricted access.

Surya Chaitanya
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Question: Will apps that only use the Google Fitness SDK to read steps be affected by the April 27th specification change of Google Fit?

Yes.

Question: If I don't re-release the app, will I no longer be able to get step count data from the app?

No you won't be able to read step counts without changing your application to include the new scopes.

To read data written by other apps from the Google Fit platform, update your integration to explicitly request the relevant read scopes.

Explanation of the change.

The changes to this api are mostly related to security. When an application other than your own inserts data into Fit, currently your application would be allowed to read both data you insert as well as the data inserted by the other applications. As your application only reads data i would say with certainty that yes this will affect your application.

This change will add authorization scopes to the API which will allow a user to decide if your application should be allowed to access that data or not.

As your application currently has access to read all of the data on Fit without updating the sdk you will not have access to the new methods, and scopes which have been added to the API. Once the change goes live your application will not be able to read this data you will only be able to read your own data.

SO if you are reading the data inserted by other applications you will need to update to the new version, and request additional scopes of authorization from your users to request permission to read the data from the other applications.

Due to the fact that you will need to change the scopes in your application you will need to go through verification again.

Linda Lawton - DaImTo
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  • Hi,DaImTo Thanks for explaining the changes in detail.Our app only gets the number of steps counted by GoogleFit, and does not read any data written by other apps. So we have determined that we are not affected by this change. However, if we change the scope in the future, we will need to take action. Thank you. – Ryoji Apr 13 '21 at 01:16
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1.Improving the behaviour of read and write access →We only have read-only access to GoogleFit to get walking steps. We do not refer to written data from other apps, etc.

2.Separate scopes for heart rate 3.Separate scopes and new data type for sleep →We don't use heart rate and sleep data.

4.Increasing clarity around session versus data access →We only refer to step count data, not its metadata.

In conclusion, we have determined that our app is outside the scope of the impact of this v20, so we will not be re-releasing the app until April 27th. We will upgrade it to v20 just in case when we add the next feature.

Ryoji
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