Android app updates requiring your approval

The following notification may look familiar to you, if you are using an Android phone/tablet.

"5 updates require your approval"



Be careful, when you see this.

This is actually a warning, though it does not use any warning icon to highlight this.

When it happens to you, just tap the notification to open your app list in Google Play. Tap each app (not the update button) and check the permission details that appear at the bottom. You'll see some of the permissions to be tagged as "New:" and may appear in a different colour than the existing permissions.

Review such permissions to understand whether that app actually requires that permission for the functionality it offers.

For example, an app that was publishing me auto news has now added additional permission to "read my contacts". I really doubt the intention in that case. Whatsoever, I do not want my contacts to be shared with this app. So I just avoided that update and planning to contact the developer to know the intention.