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The Permissions API specification defines common infrastructure that other specifications can use to interact with browser permissions that allow or deny access to powerful features on the web platform. For developers, the specification defines an API to query the permission state of a powerful feature, or be notified if a permission for a powerful feature changes state.
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.
This is a work in progress.
Some features in this specification are supported by only one user agent, and as such, are marked as at risk.
This document was published by the Web Application Security Working Group as a Working Draft. This document is intended to become a W3C Recommendation.
GitHub Issues are preferred for discussion of this specification.
Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership.
This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document was produced by a group operating under the 1 August 2017 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
This document is governed by the 15 September 2020 W3C Process Document.
This section is non-normative.
This example uses the Permissions API to decide whether local news should be shown using the Geolocation API or with a button offering to add the feature.
const { state } = await navigator.permissions.query({
name: "geolocation"
});
switch (state) {
case "granted":
showLocalNewsWithGeolocation();
break;
case "prompt":
showButtonToEnableLocalNews();
break;
case "denied":
showNationalNews();
break;
}
This example is checking whether the page has the "geolocation
" and the
"notifications
" permissions:
const queryPromises = ["geolocation", "notifications"].map(name => {
return navigator.permissions.query({ name });
});
for await (const status of queryPromises) {
console.log(`${status.name}: ${status.state}`);
}
This example is checking the permission state of the available cameras.
const devices = await navigator.mediaDevices.enumerateDevices();
// filter on video inputs, and map to query object
const queries = devices
.filter(({ kind }) => kind === "videoinput")
.map(({ deviceId }) => ({ name: "camera", deviceId }));
const promises = queries.map((queryObj) =>
navigator.permissions.query(queryObj)
);
try {
const results = await Promise.all(promises);
// log the state of each camera
results.forEach(({ state }, i) => console.log("Camera", i, state));
} catch (error) {
console.error(error);
}
This section specifies a model for permissions to use powerful features on the Web platform.
A permission represents a user's decision to allow a web application to access a powerful feature.
Conceptually, a permission can be in one of the following states:
To ascertain new information about the user's intent, a user agent MAY collect information about a user's intentions. This information can come from explicit user action, aggregate behavior of both the relevant user and other users, or implicit signals this specification hasn't anticipated.
A powerful feature is a web platform feature (usually an API) for which a user has to grant permission before the feature can be used. Access to the feature is determined by the environment settings object by the user having granted permission via UI, or by satisfying some criteria that is equivalent to a permission grant.
A powerful feature is identified by its name, which is a string literal (e.g., "geolocation").
The user agent is responsible for tracking what powerful features each realm has the user's permission to use. Other specifications can use the operations defined in this section to retrieve the UA's notion of what permissions are granted or denied, and to ask the user to grant or deny more permissions.
Specifications wanting to add a new powerful feature are encouraged to coordinate with us on this specification via GitHub.
Each powerful feature has the following permission-related flags, algorithms, and types. When the defaults are not suitable for a particular powerful feature, a specification MAY override below flags, algorithms, and types below.
PermissionDescriptor
or one of its subtypes. If unspecified, this defaults to
PermissionDescriptor
.
The feature can define a partial order on
descriptor instances. If descriptorA is stronger than descriptorB, then if descriptorA's
permission state is "granted
", descriptorB's
permission state must also be "granted
", and if
descriptorB's permission state is "denied
",
descriptorA's permission state must also be "denied
".
{name: "
("midi-with-sysex") is
stronger than midi
", sysex: true}{name: "
("midi-without-sysex"), so if the user denies access to
midi-without-sysex, the UA must also deny access to midi-with-sysex, and similarly
if the user grants access to midi-with-sysex, the UA must also grant access to
midi-without-sysex.
midi
",
sysex: false}
Some powerful features have more information associated with them than just
a PermissionState
. For example, getUserMedia
()
needs to
determine which cameras the user has granted the current realm permission to access. Each of these
features defines an extra permission data type. If a
PermissionName
name names one of these features, then name's
extra permission data for
an optional environment settings object settings is the result of the
following algorithm:
If specified, the extra permission data algorithm is usable for this feature.
PermissionName
's extra permission data. Defaults to no constraints beyond the user's intent.
PermissionStatus
or one of its subtypes. If unspecified, this defaults to
PermissionStatus
.
Takes an instance of the permission descriptor type and a new
or existing instance of the permission result type, and
updates the permission result type instance with the query
result. Used by Permissions
' query
(permissionDesc)
method and
the PermissionStatus
update steps. If unspecified, this defaults to the
default permission query algorithm.
The default permission query algorithm, given a PermissionDescriptor
permissionDesc and a PermissionStatus
status, runs the following
steps:
status.state
to permissionDesc's permission state.
Takes no arguments. Updates any other parts of the implementation that need to be kept in sync with changes in the results of permission states or extra permission data, and then react to the user revoking permission.
If unspecified, this defaults to running react to the user revoking permission.
A default powerful feature is a powerful feature with all of the above types and algorithms defaulted.
Each powerful feature has one or more aspects that websites can request permission to access. To
describe these aspects, each feature defines a subtype of PermissionDescriptor
to
be its permission descriptor type.
A descriptor's permission state for an
optional environment settings object settings is the result of the following
algorithm, which returns one of "granted
",
"prompt
", or "denied
":
descriptor.name
isn't allowed in non-secure contexts, then return "denied
".
descriptor.name
and settings has an
associated Document
named document, run the following step:
descriptor.name
return
"denied
".
descriptor.name
:
Safari is the only known UA that returns different results from this algorithm for different settings objects with the same origin. We should test which of the several possible settings objects it uses.
As a shorthand, a PermissionName
name's permission state is the
permission state of a PermissionDescriptor
with its
name
member set to name.
Spec authors, please note that algorithms in this section can wait for user input; so they shouldn't be used from other algorithms running on the main thread.
To request permission to use a descriptor, the UA must perform the
following steps. This algorithm returns either "granted
" or
"denied
".
prompt
", return current
state and abort these steps.
granted
"; otherwise return
"denied
". The user's interaction may provide new information about
the user's intent for this realm and other realms
with the same origin.
This is intentionally vague about the details of the permission UI and how the UA infers user intent. UAs should be able to explore lots of UI within this framework.
As a shorthand, requesting permission to use a PermissionName
name, is the
same as requesting permission to use a PermissionDescriptor
with its
name
member set to name.
To prompt the user to choose one of several options associated with a
descriptor, the UA must perform the following steps. This algorithm returns either
"denied
" or one of the options.
denied
", return
"denied
" and abort these steps.
granted
", the UA
may return one of options and abort these steps. If the UA returns without prompting,
then subsequent prompts for the user to choose
from the same set of options with the same descriptor must return the same option,
unless the UA receives new information about the user's intent.
denied
". If the user's interaction indicates they intend this choice
to apply to other realms, then treat this this as new information about the user's
intent for other realms with the same origin.
This is intentionally vague about the details of the permission UI and how the UA infers user intent. UAs should be able to explore lots of UI within this framework.
As a shorthand, prompting the user to choose from options associated with a
PermissionName
name, is the same as prompting the user to choose from those
options associated with a PermissionDescriptor
with its name
member set to name.
When the UA learns that the user no longer intends to grant permission for a realm to use a feature, react to the user revoking permission by:
Permissions
interface
WebIDL[Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface Permissions
{
Promise<PermissionStatus
> query
(object permissionDesc);
};
dictionary PermissionDescriptor
{
required PermissionName
name
;
};
query()
method
When the query()
method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the
following query a permission algorithm, passing the parameter
permissionDesc:
PermissionDescriptor
. If this throws an exception, return a
promise rejected with that exception and abort these steps.
rootDesc.name
's permission descriptor type. If this throws an exception, return a promise
rejected with that exception and abort these steps.
Promise
.
PermissionStatus
for typedDescriptor, and let
status be the result.
status.[[query]]
.name
's
permission query algorithm, passing
status.[[query]]
and status.
PermissionStatus
interface
WebIDL[Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface PermissionStatus
: EventTarget {
readonly attribute PermissionState
state
;
readonly attribute PermissionName
name
;
attribute EventHandler onchange
;
};
enum PermissionState
{
"granted
",
"denied
",
"prompt
",
};
PermissionStatus
instances are created with a [[query]] internal slot,
which is an instance of a feature's permission descriptor type.
When using the API, the "granted
", "denied
", and "prompt
"
enum values represent the concepts of granted, denied, and
prompt respectively.
To create a PermissionStatus
for a given PermissionDescriptor
permissionDesc, return a new instance of the permission result type for the feature named by permissionDesc.name
, with the
[[query]]
internal slot initialized to permissionDesc, and
name
initialized to permissionDesc.name
.
name
attribute
The name
attribute returns the value it was initialized to.
state
attribute
The state
attribute returns the latest value that was set on the current
instance.
onchange
attribute
The onchange
attribute is an event handler whose corresponding event
handler event type is change
.
Whenever the user agent is aware that the state of a PermissionStatus
instance
status has changed, it asynchronously runs the PermissionStatus
update
steps:
status.[[query]]
.name
's
permission query algorithm, passing
status.[[query]]
and status.
change
at status.
While an PermissionStatus
object has one or more event listeners registered for
"change", there must be a strong reference from the Window
or WorkerGlobalScope
object that the PermissionStatus
object's constructor was invoked from to the
PermissionStatus
object itself.
While there is a task queued by an PermissionStatus
object on the permissions task source, there must be a strong reference from the Window
or WorkerGlobalScope
object that the PermissionStatus
object's constructor was invoked from to that
PermissionStatus
object.
WebIDLenum PermissionName
{
"accelerometer
",
"ambient-light-sensor
",
"background-fetch
",
"background-sync
",
"bluetooth
",
"camera
",
"display-capture
",
"geolocation
",
"gyroscope
",
"magnetometer
",
"microphone
",
"midi
",
"nfc
",
"notifications
",
"persistent-storage
",
"push
",
"screen-wake-lock
",
"speaker-selection
",
"xr-spatial-tracking
",
};
Each enumeration value in the PermissionName
enum identifies a powerful feature.
The geolocation
enum value identifies the Geolocation API powerful feature. It is a default powerful feature.
The notifications
enum value identifies the Notifications API Standard powerful feature. It is a default powerful feature and is allowed in non-secure contexts.
The push
enum value identifies the Push API powerful feature.
WebIDLdictionary PushPermissionDescriptor
: PermissionDescriptor
{
boolean userVisibleOnly
= false;
};
{name: "push", userVisibleOnly: false}
is stronger than
{name: "push", userVisibleOnly: true}
.
The midi
enum value identifies the Web MIDI API powerful feature.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, is at risk.
WebIDLdictionary MidiPermissionDescriptor
: PermissionDescriptor
{
boolean sysex
= false;
};
{name: "midi", sysex: true}
is stronger than {name:
"midi", sysex: false}
.
The screen-wake-lock
enum value identifies the Screen Wake Lock API API
powerful feature. It is a default powerful feature.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The camera
, microphone
, and speaker-selection
permissions are associated with permission to use media devices as specified in
[GETUSERMEDIA] and [audio-output].
These permissions only have a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, are at risk.
WebIDLdictionary DevicePermissionDescriptor
: PermissionDescriptor
{
DOMString deviceId
;
};
dictionary CameraDevicePermissionDescriptor
: DevicePermissionDescriptor
{
boolean panTiltZoom
= false;
};
A permission covers access to the device given in the associated descriptor.
If the descriptor does not have a deviceId
, its
semantic is that it queries for access to all devices of that class. Thus, if a query
for the "camera
" permission with no
deviceId
returns "granted
", the
client knows that there will never be a permission prompt for a camera, and if
"denied
" is returned, it knows that no getUserMedia request for a
camera will succeed.
If a permission state is present for access to some, but not all, cameras, a query
without the deviceId
will return
"prompt
".
{name: "camera", panTiltZoom: true}
is stronger than
{name: "camera", panTiltZoom: false}
.
Note that a "granted" permission is no guarantee that getUserMedia will succeed. It only guarantees that the user will not be prompted for permission. There are many other things (such as constraints or the camera being in use) that can cause getUserMedia to fail.
deviceId
values for the devices the user has made a
non-default decision on access to.
status.state
to permissionDesc's permission state
and terminate these steps.
deviceId
member removed.
status.state
to global's permission state.
name
and deviceId
as arguments.
If the descriptor does not have a deviceId
, then
undefined
is passed in place of deviceId
.
The background-fetch
enum value identifies the Background Fetch
powerful feature.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The background-sync
enum value identifies the Web Background Synchronization
powerful feature.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The bluetooth
enum value identifies the Web Bluetooth powerful feature.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The persistent-storage
is enum value identifies the Storage Standard powerful feature.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The ambient-light-sensor
enum value identifies the Ambient Light Sensor API
powerful feature.
Its permission revocation algorithm is the result of calling
generic sensor permission revocation algorithm passing it
"ambient-light-sensor
" as argument.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The accelerometer
enum value identifies the Accelerometer API powerful feature.
Its permission revocation algorithm is the result of calling
generic sensor permission revocation algorithm passing it
"accelerometer
" as argument.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The gyroscope
enum value identifies the Gyroscope API powerful feature.
Its permission revocation algorithm is the result of calling
generic sensor permission revocation algorithm passing it
"gyroscope
" as argument.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The magnetometer
enum value identifies the Magnetometer API powerful feature.
Its permission revocation algorithm is the result of calling
generic sensor permission revocation algorithm passing it
"magnetometer
" as argument.
The display-capture
enum value identifies the Screen Capture powerful feature.
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
prompt
" and "denied
". The user agent MUST NOT
ever set this descriptor's permission state to "granted
".
This powerful feature only has a single implementation, and therefore, as per the W3C Process, it is at risk.
The nfc
enum value identifies the Web NFC API powerful feature.
The xr-spatial-tracking
enum value identifies the WebXR Device API Device API
powerful feature.
As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
The key words MAY, MUST, and MUST NOT in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
This section is non-normative.
Although technically this specification and the Permissions Policy specification ([Permissions-Policy]) deal with "permissions", each specification serves a distinct purpose in the platform. Nevertheless, the two specifications do explicitly overlap.
On the one hand, this specification exclusively concerns itself with powerful features
whose access is managed through a user-agent mediated permissions UI (i.e., permissions
where the user gives express consent before that feature can be used, and where the user
retains the ability to deny that permission at any time for any reason). These powerful
features are explicitly identified by this specification's PermissionName
enum.
On the other hand, the Permissions Policy specification allows developers to selectively
enable and disable powerful features through a "permissions policy" (be it
a HTTP header or a the allow
attribute). The APIs and features in scope for the
Permissions Policy specification go beyond those identified in this specification's
PermissionName
enum (e.g., "sync-xhr" and "gamepad"). In that sense, the Permissions
Policy subsumes this specification in that Permissions Policy governs whether a feature is
available at all, independently of this specification.
A powerful feature that has been disabled by the Permissions Policy specification always
has its permission state reflected as "denied" by this specification. This occurs because
reading the current permission state relies on [HTML]'s "allowed to use" check, which
itself calls into the Permissions Policy specification. Important to note here is the
sharing of permission names across both specifications. Where this specification has the
PermissionName
enum, the Permissions Policy specification relies on other
specifications defining the names of the permissions (e.g., the permission "gamepad" is
defined in [Gamepad], and so on).
Finally, it's not possible for a powerful feature to ever become "granted" through any means provided by the Permissions Policy specification. The only way that a powerful feature can be "granted" is through a user-agent provided permission UI, or by some other user agent policy.
This section is non-normative.
Automated testing of this specification is performed using the API provided by the Permissions Automation document.
This section is non-normative.
An adversary could use a permission state as an element in creating a "fingerprint"
corresponding to an end-user. Although an adversary can already determine the state of a
permission by actually using the API, that often leads to a permission request UI being
presented to the end-user (if the permission was not already
"granted
"). Thus, even though this API doesn't expose new
fingerprinting information to websites, it makes it easier for an adversary to have
discreet access to this information. Thus, implementations are encouraged to have an option
for users to block (globally or selectively) the querying of permission states.
WebIDL[Exposed=(Window)]
partial interface Navigator {
[SameObject] readonly attribute Permissions permissions
;
};
[Exposed=(Worker)]
partial interface WorkerNavigator {
[SameObject] readonly attribute Permissions permissions
;
};
[Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface Permissions
{
Promise<PermissionStatus
> query
(object permissionDesc);
};
dictionary PermissionDescriptor
{
required PermissionName
name
;
};
[Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface PermissionStatus
: EventTarget {
readonly attribute PermissionState
state
;
readonly attribute PermissionName
name
;
attribute EventHandler onchange
;
};
enum PermissionState
{
"granted
",
"denied
",
"prompt
",
};
enum PermissionName
{
"accelerometer
",
"ambient-light-sensor
",
"background-fetch
",
"background-sync
",
"bluetooth
",
"camera
",
"display-capture
",
"geolocation
",
"gyroscope
",
"magnetometer
",
"microphone
",
"midi
",
"nfc
",
"notifications
",
"persistent-storage
",
"push
",
"screen-wake-lock
",
"speaker-selection
",
"xr-spatial-tracking
",
};
dictionary PushPermissionDescriptor
: PermissionDescriptor
{
boolean userVisibleOnly
= false;
};
dictionary MidiPermissionDescriptor
: PermissionDescriptor
{
boolean sysex
= false;
};
dictionary DevicePermissionDescriptor
: PermissionDescriptor
{
DOMString deviceId
;
};
dictionary CameraDevicePermissionDescriptor
: DevicePermissionDescriptor
{
boolean panTiltZoom
= false;
};
This section is non-normative.
The editors would like to thank Adrienne Porter Felt, Anne van Kesteren, Domenic Denicola, Jake Archibald and Wendy Seltzer for their help with the API design and editorial work.
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