How to prevent deleting contacts OR contact management app with a fully managed device

Question

Hello,

I am trying to implement task for Android 10-11 fully managed devices in kiosk mode devices in Intune. All Samsung devices with Knox support.

It is necessary to manage contacts centrally, or at least prohibit their deletion by the user.

Samsung Contacts (built-in application) is used as the contacts application.

I understand that this must be a third party application, Intune cannot allow this. But I could not find anything, at least write it yourself :) (but this is not possible).

Ways that I thought could be implemented:
Did not find a way to set up Samsung or Android contacts to prevent deletion.
Knox also can`t prevent deletion.
There was an idea to try to add an account (for example, Google) that would synchronize contacts. But the user can delete them.
Or for example, if the user who works on the device was Mail Enabled in Office 365, then user could download (sync contacts with activesync outlook) address book from Excahnge Online. An I think he cannot edit or remove them (some work profile contacts). But devices are shared and with kiosk mode.

Please help with advice.

Thank you.

Answer 1

@Mountain Pond Thanks for posting in our Q&A forum.
After testing, I found that contacts can still be deleted in fully managed devices in kiosk mode, and I didn't find an option to prevent the ability to delete contacts, at least not currently supported by Intune.
And I also searched in Android MDM, currently they do not provide an interface to prevent deletion or modification of contacts, please refer to:
https://developer.android.com/work/managed-profiles

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