com.samsung.android.smartface.overlay Copy

A Samsung package whose name follows Android's Runtime Resource Overlay (RRO) convention. AOSP describes an RRO as a resource-only package that changes the resource values of a target package at runtime without modifying that target's code. From the name the target is com.samsung.android.smartface, Samsung's SmartFaceService, which is documented separately on this site; that target is inference from the naming convention rather than a sourced fact, since Samsung publishes no manifest or documentation for this overlay and does not publish which resource values it sets. Its shape fits a resource-only package. This site records no declared permission for it at all, builds between roughly 12.8 KB and 16.9 KB, and the same version name of 1.0 on both the oldest and the newest build by version code, so the version string carries no information about whether the overlay has changed. It appears on Samsung devices under a single Samsung OEM certificate that this site also records as signing the Android framework, a platform-level key. It has no launcher entry, is recorded as not user-facing on every observation here, and no observation is Play-eligible. Version note. The overlay does not appear in the Samsung Common Criteria mode application lists checked here for Android 9-era Galaxy S10+ (G975F) firmware or Android 11-era Galaxy S20 FE 5G (G781B) and Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (G988W) firmware, although SmartFaceService itself is listed in all three, at version 1 on the S10+ and 1.0 on the two Android 11-era devices. This site's earliest observation of the overlay is on API 33, with observations spanning API 33 to API 37 and a target SDK roll-up of 33 to 37. That points to an overlay introduced later than the service it appears to target, with the same caveats as elsewhere: absence from three device application lists is not proof of absence from the platform of that era, and when it was introduced could not be sourced. Whether the values it sets have changed across releases is likewise not published. For Android Enterprise, EMM and kiosk use it presents nothing a user interacts with and no enrolment or management role is identified in the sources cited here. It is worth being explicit that an overlay of this kind is not a policy mechanism: it sets resource values in its target and does not grant, deny or override the restrictions an EMM applies through device policy. If it is the RRO its name indicates, disabling it would revert its target to unoverlaid resource values, and since neither the target nor those values are published the effect is firmware-specific and untestable in advance, so it is best left in place and only changed with careful per-device testing.

• Change the value of an app's resources at runtime (RROs) - Android Open Source Project →
• Galaxy S10+ LTE (G975F) application list - Samsung Knox CC Mode documentation →
• Galaxy S20 FE 5G (G781B) application list - Samsung Knox CC Mode documentation →
• Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (G988W) application list - Samsung Knox CC Mode documentation →
• Package provenance for com.samsung.android.smartface.overlay - Android System App Database →

• Signed by the device maker's own signing key (Samsung), so it is an OEM preinstall, and that single certificate is consistent across all 19 device profiles. It also signs the Android framework, so it is a platform-level key on its device(s). Inferred from the certificate appearing only on Samsung devices (508 packages, 10196 observations).
• Never reported as user-facing, so it runs as a background or system component rather than an app the user opens.