Checking for Privacy - Photo Library Additions Usage Description only in iOS - swift

Question

My app only needs the 'Privacy - Photo Library Additions Usage Description' property in the plist file (app writes to Photo library, but doesn't read).
I use this code to check for permissions:
PHPhotoLibrary.requestAuthorization { status in
if status == .authorized {
print("Permission granted")
} else {
print("Unavailable")
}
}
In the iOS Settings for my app, even though the plist only needs 'Add Photos Only', 'Read and Write' is also listed (??), and the above code only gets the authorised status if 'Read and Write' is ticked (ticking 'Add Photos Only' just causes the above code to go through to the else statement).
I'm a bit confused to why 'Read & Write' is even listed as a setting for my app, when my plist doesn't include "Privacy - Photo Library Usage Description".
Any ideas?

Answer 1

It's because you are calling PHPhotoLibrary.requestAuthorization.
If all you need is to write blindly into the user's camera roll, do not call PHPhotoLibrary.requestAuthorization. Just go ahead and write, e.g. by calling UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum or UISaveVideoAtPathToSavedPhotosAlbum. The runtime will request authorization on your behalf.
But if you want to interact with the photo library itself, i.e. thru the Photos framework, then you need authorization and an entry under Privacy - Photo Library Usage Description, even if all you intend to do is write.
Judging by your comments, you may be confused about what requestAuthorization does. It tries to obtain permission. If all you want to know is what the current authorization status actually is, call authorizationStatus instead.
However, even then, we're talking about the photo library itself, and thus the value referred to as Read & Write in Settings.
If you want to know whether you have permission to do UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum or UISaveVideoAtPathToSavedPhotosAlbum, just go ahead and call it. If there's a permissions problem, you'll hear about it in the completion handler.