Xamarin Android: Obtain the IMEI from a device with Android 10

Question

Xamarin Android: Obtain the IMEI from a device with Android 10

Carugati 0

One of our customers is updating his Android devices to version 10.0 (API 29). The app that our customer uses is manually installed via APK on each device. The app is NOT released via public stores. Each device is NOT associated with any physical person, the devices are shared between operators.

Up to now we have always uniquely identified devices via IMEI, but with Android 10.0 (API 29) this approach is no longer available.

Since the smartphones are owned by our customer, is there any way to force permission for our app to retrieve the IMEI?

Possibly we need a solution that does not require our customer to manually save the IMEI in some file on each individual device (there are hundreds of devices).

Thank you very much in advance

Anonymous

2023-09-27T06:03:57.7666667+00:00
Could you minimize code to just what is needed to reproduce the problem?

Did you grant the READ_PHONE_STATE permission at the runtime? You can get the anddroid id to replace of the IMEI, As note, if you execute the factory reset. This id will be changed.

using static Android.Provider.Settings; string Identifier=Secure.GetString(Application.Context.ContentResolver, Secure.AndroidId);
Carugati 0 Reputation points

2023-09-27T07:03:45.1166667+00:00
Good morning Leon Lu,

Thanks for the reply.

The code with which we have always recovered the IMEI and the telephone number is the following:

Context cnt = Application.Context; Android.Telephony.TelephonyManager tel = (Android.Telephony.TelephonyManager)cnt.GetSystemService(Context.TelephonyService); string phoneIMEI = tel.Imei; string phoneNumber = tel.Line1Number;

With Android 10 it returns exception:

Java.Lang.SecurityException: 'getImeiForSlot: The user 10148 does not meet the requirements to access device identifiers.'

Regarding the Android ID, is it an ID that always remains the same except for the factory reset?

Having hundreds of devices, do we have a guarantee that this ID is never repeated between different devices and uniquely identifies that device? Or is there no such type of guarantee of uniqueness?

Many thanks in advance
Anonymous

2023-09-27T09:26:48.4333333+00:00

I get the same error,

Having hundreds of devices, do we have a guarantee that this ID is never repeated between different devices and uniquely identifies that device? Or is there no such type of guarantee of uniqueness?

please check this google Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID document, if you have circumstances that will change this android id.
Carugati 0 Reputation points

2023-09-27T09:33:38.6066667+00:00

Thanks for the material.

In the document, if I understand correctly, it seems to me that it is not expressly guaranteed that the ANDROID_ID is unique and that it cannot be generated the same on another device.

If two devices had the same ID it would be a big problem for us.

Is this the case or did I misunderstand?

Thanks in advance
Anonymous

2023-09-28T03:28:03.6433333+00:00

ANDROID_ID is intended to be unique, it is not always guaranteed to be universally unique due to various factors, such as device manufacturer implementations or limitations, custom ROMs, or non-Google-certified devices.

Here is a google document about Best practices for unique identifiers in android, you can refer to it.

Your answer

Anonymous

2023-09-27T06:03:57.7666667+00:00

Could you minimize code to just what is needed to reproduce the problem?

Did you grant the READ_PHONE_STATE permission at the runtime? You can get the anddroid id to replace of the IMEI, As note, if you execute the factory reset. This id will be changed.

using static Android.Provider.Settings; string Identifier=Secure.GetString(Application.Context.ContentResolver, Secure.AndroidId);
Carugati 0 Reputation points

2023-09-27T07:03:45.1166667+00:00

Good morning Leon Lu,

Thanks for the reply.

The code with which we have always recovered the IMEI and the telephone number is the following:

Context cnt = Application.Context; Android.Telephony.TelephonyManager tel = (Android.Telephony.TelephonyManager)cnt.GetSystemService(Context.TelephonyService); string phoneIMEI = tel.Imei; string phoneNumber = tel.Line1Number;

With Android 10 it returns exception:

Java.Lang.SecurityException: 'getImeiForSlot: The user 10148 does not meet the requirements to access device identifiers.'

Regarding the Android ID, is it an ID that always remains the same except for the factory reset?

Having hundreds of devices, do we have a guarantee that this ID is never repeated between different devices and uniquely identifies that device? Or is there no such type of guarantee of uniqueness?

Many thanks in advance
Anonymous

2023-09-27T09:26:48.4333333+00:00

I get the same error,

Having hundreds of devices, do we have a guarantee that this ID is never repeated between different devices and uniquely identifies that device? Or is there no such type of guarantee of uniqueness?

please check this google Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID document, if you have circumstances that will change this android id.
Carugati 0 Reputation points

2023-09-27T09:33:38.6066667+00:00

Thanks for the material.

In the document, if I understand correctly, it seems to me that it is not expressly guaranteed that the ANDROID_ID is unique and that it cannot be generated the same on another device.

If two devices had the same ID it would be a big problem for us.

Is this the case or did I misunderstand?

Thanks in advance
Anonymous

2023-09-28T03:28:03.6433333+00:00

ANDROID_ID is intended to be unique, it is not always guaranteed to be universally unique due to various factors, such as device manufacturer implementations or limitations, custom ROMs, or non-Google-certified devices.

Here is a google document about Best practices for unique identifiers in android, you can refer to it.

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Xamarin Android: Obtain the IMEI from a device with Android 10

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