![]() ![]() Voila, you have yourself a timeline, right? Well, not quite.īefore we get to the database, let’s take a quick look at where it is stored. In theory, one could merely extract the database, run a quick SQL query, export to CSV, and sort by time. However, examining it is straight forward for two reasons: 1, it is a SQLite database, and 2, it uses the same event type codes as Usage Stats, which are well documented on the Android developer site. The best way to forensically describe Digital Wellbeing is “Usage Stats on steroids.” While this is great for Android, it is not quite as thorough as iOS’s knowledgeC, and it is definiately no where near as “clean” as knowledgeC. ![]() I installed two apps from the Google Play Store, Line and WhatsApp, and generated some test data with them along with some default apps. I did not do anything to the Digital Wellbeing app just so I could see what the default data collection looked like, and I imagine most users will do the same as they probably do not care about this feature. When setting up the phone I took all of the defaults. To generate test data, I wiped my Pixel 3, flashed it with a clean install of Android 10 (January 2020 patch level), and then rooted it with Magisk. This app has other capabilities, but from an investigative standpoint these are the ones to pay attention to. The top of the screen is tracking the number of times the phone has been opened and the number of times each app has been opened is detailed at the bottom. Times opened.Īt the bottom of Figures 2-4, you can see how the total amount of time breaks down for each app. The other two choices are “Notifications Received” (Figure 3) and “Times Opened” (Figure 4). The area in the red box is a drop down menu. Tapping in the middle of the blue circle brings me to the page seen in Figure 2, which is tracking the amount of time I have been active on my screen. You can also see the chart that shows the amount of time I spent on the phone at that particular point in the day I took the screenshot early in the morning, so I had only been on the phone for a few minutes. The part that is of interest here is the top portion, “Your Digital Wellbeing tools.” As you can see the device is tracking the number of unlocks and the amount of notifications received (red box). Figure 1 shows the landing page for the app. It can be accessed from the Android Settings app. Visually Speakingĭigital Wellbeing is a dashboard for the usage data it collects, and it is fairly easy to navigate. My hope for this blog post is that it takes their work one step further. Jessica Hyde Alexis Brignoni and Yogesh Khatri have done a lot of great work on Usage Stats in Android and how they can be used to track user activity. Sometimes examiners and investigators need to know that same information in order to make informed decisions during an investigation. In order to do this, users need to know how much time they are spending on their phones and how they are using them. Google wants users to be able to make informed decisions about their digital well being. The point is that regardless of which option OEMs choose, the data will be there…somewhere, and in some fashion. However, it is more likely they will just use Digital Wellbeing. Basically, this means while the specific Digital Wellbeing app is not required, tracking certain activities and making that information available to the user is, so it is possible OEMs may implement their own solutions in order to comply. This is baked into the Google Mobile Services contract, so OEMs who want to use Google services and apps on their handsets will have to comply. As of September 3, 2019, Google is requiring Digital Wellbeing-like capabilities on all phones that either launch with or upgrade to Android 9 or 10. While not present on every Android device, it is required on newer devices. It was introduced to the Pixel line in Android 9, and slowly rolled out to non-Pixel phones. I shared this information with Alexis Brignoni (more on that later) and got to work on some test data after I created the Android 10 image.ĭigital Wellbeing is not new. While poking around the OS during the data generation period I found Google’s Digital Wellbeing app was tracking how many times I unlocked the test phone each day, which led me to ask “what else was it tracking?” As it turns out, quite a bit. Google Assistant and Android Auto were results of Nougat and Oreo, and the changes I found in Google Assistant were a result of Android Pie. Each time I have created an Android image I have found something new. ![]()
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