From the course: Android App Development: Enterprise Integration

The device administrator - Android Tutorial

From the course: Android App Development: Enterprise Integration

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The device administrator

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- [Instructor] An Android device in the workplace will be owned by one of two parties, the enterprise or an employee. And the owner of a device will directly impact how it is managed by a mobile device management system. In the instance that the device is owned by the employee, there is only so much a mobile device management system can do before it becomes intrusive and rather unappealing. I wouldn't want to give anything the power to tell me what I can and can't install on my phone or decide to factory reset it on me. Would you? To address this concern, the device policy controller operates as a profile owner on the device. It will carve out a profile of its own that it will have control over and leave the rest of the device alone. Within this context, the device policy controller acts as the device admin. When the device is owned by the enterprise, the device policy controller is permitted far more control. In this case, the device policy controller runs as the device owner. A separate profile is usually not allocated and it is device admin for the whole system. It is important to note that the device policy controller can only be set to run in device owner mode if it is configured during initial setup of the device. It cannot be done at any other time. It is designed in this way to prevent malware from assigning itself device administrative privileges and to mitigate potential privacy concerns if there was already user data resident on the device. This also means that a device can only be registered with one mobile device management system at a time. In both of these cases, the device policy controller operates as a device admin. But what does that mean? As a profile owner, it means that the device policy controller can remotely monitor the device status, such as the CPU usage and system temperatures, control hardware like disable the camera or fingerprint reader, set password policies on the device, and wipe data contained within its controlled profile. When it is running as the device owner, the device policy controller can do everything a profile owner can do, in addition to things like restricting user access to system settings, enabling or disabling radios, like WiFi, Bluetooth, and data, and initiating a factory reset of the device, among many other things.

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