App Permissions & Privacy
The Ground Zeroes Companion App was released in 2014 and targets a much older version of Android. Modern Android, MIUI and emulator permission screens can therefore describe old app capabilities using categories that did not exist when the original app was made.
This page documents the Android APK permissions. The iOS 1.0.6 preservation build is distributed separately as an IPA and can be installed through SideStore or a compatible TrollStore/jailbreak setup. It does not use the Android permission model described below.
v0.25 removes the remaining broad legacy storage permission
Earlier preservation builds still inherited the original application's
WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission. On newer Android versions,
that old broad storage request could be presented as modern categories such
as Files, Photos and videos and
Music and audio.
After testing on compatible physical Android hardware and BlueStacks, WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE was removed in v0.25. The inherited READ_PHONE_STATE permission had already been removed in v0.23.
A legacy Android permission shown through a modern interface
The original storage permission
The 2014 application used the old WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
permission. At the time, Android used broad shared-storage permissions
rather than today's more specific media categories.
Modern Android compatibility handling
On a modern Android system, an old app's broad storage capability can be
represented through newer Files / Photos / Video / Music permission
categories. This was observed during community testing on Android 13 /
MIUI 14 even though the APK did not directly declare the modern
READ_MEDIA_* permissions.
The notification switch
Modern Android or MIUI may also expose a Notifications control for an
installed application. The preservation APK does not declare Android's
modern POST_NOTIFICATIONS permission. A notification control
governs whether this app may show notifications; it is not permission to
read other apps' notifications.
Privacy-sensitive permission check
These are the permissions most likely to cause concern when looking at a modern Android or BlueStacks permissions screen.
| Permission | In v0.25? | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
READ_PHONE_STATE |
No | Inherited from the original app but removed from the preservation build in v0.23. Restored Mother Base functionality does not require it. |
WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE |
No | Inherited from the original 2014 app, tested without it on physical Android and BlueStacks, then removed in v0.25. |
READ_MEDIA_IMAGES |
No | The preservation APK does not request Android's modern photo-library permission. |
READ_MEDIA_VIDEO |
No | The preservation APK does not request Android's modern video-library permission. |
READ_MEDIA_AUDIO |
No | The preservation APK does not request Android's modern music/audio-library permission. |
POST_NOTIFICATIONS |
No | The preservation APK does not declare Android's modern notification permission. |
What was tested before removal?
Community testing first confirmed that the restored app continued to work
with the broad storage/media permission controls disabled. A dedicated build
with WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE removed was then tested on compatible
physical Android hardware, followed by the equivalent BlueStacks build.
Mother Base, local save persistence, cassette functionality and the current iDROID / DATA PORTAL handling continued to work during this testing. The game's local save lives in the application's private internal storage, so it does not require broad access to shared photos, videos, music or files.
Remove legacy access only after proving it is unnecessary
The project deliberately avoids removing original permissions purely because they look outdated. We identify what the original client used them for, test the preserved functionality without them, and only then remove them from the public release.
That process was used for READ_PHONE_STATE in v0.23 and again for
WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE in v0.25. Network access remains necessary
because registration, save synchronization, cassette delivery and other restored
online functions connect to the preservation server.
Please send a screenshot or report it through the site. Permission and privacy questions are treated as preservation issues and checked against the actual APK rather than guessed from the label shown by an emulator or Android UI.