Getting WIFI SSID in Android 8.1 without GPS

Question

I need to find the SSID of the current connected method. I've read this already, but it uses GPS, which I don't want to. Is there a way I can achieve that?

Answer 1

as far as I know, there is no workaround or trick to achieve this, except rooting the user's device or using a far outdated targetSDKversion.

The main point is to understand why Android requires this permission and for this you have to see it from the end users point of view: an App who can scan for all SSIDs available on the current location of the device can use this scanresults (SSID + BSSID) in combination with online services like https://wigle.net/ to determine the users location with +-100m precision. That's why the user has to give the location-permission when your app simply wants to scan for SSIDs.

Another question is whether Google uses the position determined by GPS together with the scan results to fill and maintain its own Wifi location database.