Garmin whatch face are safe?

Hi,

I have seen that many Watch faces of thirty party can access to the data of other applications and send information through internet.

Does this mean, for example, can they can read my sms, bank and WhatsApp messages and send them to their servers?

If truth, it sounds like a big issue about security and privacy.

I hope to be wrong

0 trux 2 months ago

7083972 said:
I have seen that many Watch faces of thirty party can access to the data of other applications

Where did you see that? A CIQ app installed on the watch cannot access the data of any other CIQ app. And it cannot access any data of phone apps at all (unless you install also a phone compagnon app).

7083972 said:
and send information through internet.

A CIQ app can only send information trough the web if it granted the permission to do so. If you fear the app could send some data from the watch to a remote server, check the specifications of the app, and choose the one not requiring any. The required permissions are listed on the main age of every CIQ app. For example:

You can also see there which data the app can access. Read more about the CIQ permissions here: https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/core-topics/manifest-and-permissions/

7083972 said:
Does this mean, for example, can they can read my sms, bank and WhatsApp messages and send them to their servers?

No.

7083972 said:
I hope to be wrong

Indeed

0 7083972 2 months ago in reply to trux

Hi Trux, thank you very much for the explanation. My worry came from Watch faces with these authorizations that are quite common:

- GPS location

- Run in the background when it is not active (potentially affecting battery life)

- Heart rate, barometer, temperature, and altitude history

- Your Garmin Connect fitness profile

- Send/receive information to/from the Internet

- Read and display data from other apps.

- Sensor data (i.e., ANT+, heart rate, compass)

With these permissions, it seems to me that a Watch con read my Sensor and Health Data and send it to a server. Am I wrong?

Other point is about “Read and display data from other apps". For me is not clear who the other Apps are. A notification shown on the watch from the Mobile app Bank, is it an "Other App"? But if I’m not wrong, you already said no.

Thanks

0 trux 2 months ago in reply to 7083972

7083972 said:
With these permissions, it seems to me that a Watch con read my Sensor and Health Data and send it to a server.

It can read some of it (but not all data available in your account). Sending/receiving data might have its purpose sometimes (for example to pull weather data from an alternative data source, or storing some settings fr sharing with other CIQ apps of the same author, etc), but for the majority of apps it is not necessary. If you do not need a watchface pulling data from elsewhere, do not install it.

7083972 said:
Other point is about “Read and display data from other apps". For me is not clear who the other Apps are.

Other CIQ apps installed on the device and using the feature ComplicationProvider serving some data to other apps, not phone apps.