Why does my App need android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE_LOCATION?

Question

I have been working on various features on our Android 14 App using the latest version of Android Studio Hedgehog and Java over the past months. Whenever I completed a big feature, I published the App using Google's Play Console.

Today, I wasn't able to do so, because apparently my App uses android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE_LOCATION and because of that I need to adjust our Manifest file to show where we use this permission and I need to declare via video in Google's Play Console where we use it and why we need it.

My problem: I do not know where we use it...

• If I search for the text FOREGROUND_SERVICE_LOCATION I do not find anything.
• If I search for functions that are associated with this permission such as startForeground or stopForeground (see here), I have zero hits.
• I also checked for the word permission throughout the entire application and found nothing that was unexpected or had foreground in its name.
• We have no object that extends a Service or a Worker.

I do use quite a lot of hardware components on the devices (camera, location, Bluetooth, NFC, Barcode Scanner, ...), but only when the App is running and not in the background.

But when I upload the latest Bundle into Google's Play Console, I get the following list of permissions the App apparently requests. Many of them I do in fact declare in our Manifest, but I have no idea where the foreground services are coming from. Therefore, I do not know how to declare my Manifest properly.

1. android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION
2. android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION
3. android.permission.ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION
4. android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
5. android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE
6. android.permission.BLUETOOTH
7. android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN
8. android.permission.BLUETOOTH_SCAN
9. android.permission.CAMERA
10. android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE_LOCATION
11. android.permission.INTERNET
12. android.permission.NFC
13. android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS
14. android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
15. android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE
16. android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED
17. android.permission.WAKE_LOCK
18. android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
19. com.google.android.c2dm.permission.RECEIVE
20. com.symbol.emdk.permission.EMDK

I am grateful for any support.

Margueritamarguerite

Answer 1

Check the merged manifest, the permission is probably coming from a library you used.

You can see it directly on Android studio https://developer.android.com/build/manage-manifests#inspect_the_merged_manifest_and_find_conflicts

Sparerib

Thank you. In the merged manifest file, the android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE_LOCATION is listed below our added com.symbol.emdk.permission.EMDK. Apparently, the Zebra SDK uses it. And we use it in every single Action. FML. – Margueritamarguerite

@Isidro Rodriguez I am also getting the same in my react native android app. I am using expo. Can you help me please? – Colloquial

@HabiburRahman, I think it's better if you post a new question and share the details there, so me and others can help – Sparerib

@IsidroRodriguez Here is my new question #77994225 Please help – Colloquial