Firebase Question posted in
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In firebase, can the developer see the users' content?

i just started android development. i realized something while developing andorid. i can see the contents etc. entered by users in firebase. is this the same for other applications?

If you know anything about this, could you tell me about it?

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  1. 0

    If your app stores content on behalf of your users in one of Firebase’s content storage product (Firestore, Realtime Database, Cloud Storage, and more), then you as the developer can indeed see that content.

    If you want to prevent this, you will have to encrypt the content before writing it to Firebase, and store the decryption key somewhere outside of Firebase. Search for Firebase end to end encryption to learn more about this, including these previous questions:

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  2. 0

    This is pretty much normal. Developers need to see user data when developing and debugging code. Although you are asking about Firebase, the principal applies to all database systems.

    But in a production system access to production user data is often restricted on a "need to access" basis. Typically only developers chasing data related bugs and database administrators responsible for the health of the database will have access.

    The mechanism for controlling access is typically two level:

    • You need network access to the database server and access to the port on which the database runs. Firewalling is the tool that controls this.
    • You need the credentials required to open the database connection. Typically this will involve a user name plus password or possibly a certificate.

    So in short, if you have access to the database you have an excellent chance of reading and possibly modifying user data. Note that most database engines have further access control mechanisms – for example encrypted columns. Also the application may further restrict access. A common example is storing password hashes rather than plaintext passwords.

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