For users who share usage statistics and diagnostics with
Google, WebView sends
usage statistics and crash reports to Google. Usage statistics contain
information such as system information, active field trials, feature usage,
responsiveness, performance, and memory usage. They don't include any personally
identifying details.
Usage statistics
Collected usage statistics are used to improve
WebView performance, assess the impact of
changes to existing features, and guide the development of new features.
The stable channel of WebView gathers usage statistics from a small percentage
of users. Pre-stable channels might sample from a greater percentage of users.
Starting with WebView 71, these statistics are associated with the app package
name. This lets Google proactively monitor and address WebView issues that
might degrade the performance of specific apps without causing crashes.
Before WebView 104, for any given app, at most 10% of users upload reports
containing the package name. Other users upload blank package names or no upload
records at all.
Starting with WebView 104, app package names are always recorded for apps that
are in a list of allowed popular apps. Other apps upload blank package names.
Opt out usage statistics
Apps can opt out of usage statistics collection by including the following in
the <application> section of their manifest:
<meta-data android:name="android.webkit.WebView.MetricsOptOut" android:value="true" />
This disables usage statistics collection for all users of the app, regardless of whether they have the corresponding setting enabled. It doesn't disable crash reporting.
Opt out of metrics collection
WebView has the ability to upload anonymous diagnostic data to Google when the
user gives their consent. Data is collected on a per-app basis for each app that
instantiates a WebView. You can opt out of this feature by creating the
following tag in the manifest's <application> element:
<manifest> <application> ... <meta-data android:name="android.webkit.WebView.MetricsOptOut" android:value="true" /> </application> </manifest>
Data is only uploaded from an app if the user consents and the app doesn't opt out. For more information about opting out of diagnostic data reporting, see the following section on crash reports.
Crash reports
Crash reports are collected when a
WebView object is likely to be the cause
of the crash. Crash reports contain information required to determine the state
of the WebView at the time of the crash. This includes system information,
active field trials, and stack memory from the app required to generate the
sequence of calls made within the thread.
Stack memory is sanitized to remove strings, with the intent of capturing only the information required to generate stack traces. No URLs are collected as part of usage statistics or crash reports.
Pseudonymous identifiers and data privacy
Crash reports and usage statistics collected by WebView each contain a
randomly generated 128-bit token used to pseudonymously de-duplicate reports and
maintain accuracy in statistics. Token values aren't shared between apps, and
crash reports and usage statistics have independent tokens. All apps' usage
statistics tokens are cleared when the user opts out of sharing usage statistics
and diagnostics with Google. The crash report token is cleared when the app
cache is cleared. Both tokens are cleared when the app is uninstalled or app
data is cleared.
Additional resources
To learn more about user privacy, see Build apps to be private.