How to avoid leaking private data to apps without rooting my phone? The majority of apps on the Play Store require access to things like location, contacts, call log, identity, SMS, etc., even when the app functionality clearly doesn't need this information to work.

I read somewhere that for rooted devices there's an app that can provide fake data to other apps, thus protecting the users privacy.

But I don't want to root because of security issues (I haven't really researched it much, but I don't think there's much control over what goes into the modified system images).

Is there a solution to this? At the moment I just don't install apps that require too much, which leaves me with very feel options in some cases.

Ideally there would be some way to block the access to certain data, even when I install apps that want that access.

Thanks.
Simple answer is no.

Also, I'd like to point out that there's many, many reasons apps will ask for these sorts of permissions, and I can promise you, they're not all stealing your private information. For instance, the SMS permission is commonly used to detect conformation codes that an app may send you.

If you are installing calculator apps that require your call log, contacts and SMS, then just download another app.

People these days are getting far too scared over nothing.