CyanogenMod incognito mode currently in development

CyanogenMod may soon be getting a new privacy feature. Said feature is called “Run in Incognito Mode” and it is being described as a “simple privacy feature designed to help you keep your personal data under control.” The feature is being worked on by Steve Kondik and as we always see with CyanogenMod updates — there hasn’t been any sort of release timeframe given.

Actually, what has been said is that he is working on a feature that will “hopefully make it’s way into CM.” Trying to remain optimistic that the “Run in Incognito Mode” feature will appear, how about we shift over to what this will do. Kondik has said this will have a per-application flag. This flag will exposed by an API and content providers will be able to use that to decide if they should return a full or limited dataset.

Further details here reveal how this may work. It was shown that the flag could show the GPS to appear disabled and how your system could provide empty lists for items such as messages, contacts, calendar and browser history. The screen capture sitting above gives a look at how this will display. Other details here include the following;

• When an app is running incognito, a quick panel item is displayed in order to turn it off easily.
• No fine-grained permissions controls as you saw in CM7. It’s a single option available under application details.

One item to keep in mind here, this is a privacy feature. In fact, Kondik has said they will not be providing ad-blocking or device info (IMEI) spoofing. He then goes on to clarify this feature is “designed explictly to help protect your personal data, and it will remain as such.”

Otherwise, giving a brief look at how this will work from the other side. The API will provide an “isIncognito() call” which will alert you as to whether the ingocnito mode is enabled and from this point any third party applications will be able to honor the feature. Bottom line here, it looks like this setup will be able to keep your personal data separate from your apps.

SOURCE: Google+ (Steve Kondik)