[biggestlou]

Unfortunately, GitHub does not provide read-only access to repos, be they public or private: https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes.

If you've used Apiary, TravisCI, or a plethora of other third-party GitHub apps that access repos, then you have granted read/write access. We would love to see a read-only option but were bound by this limitation.

[jkrems]

Read access to public repos just doesn't have to be granted - period. That's why there's no scope for it. The tool could just have excluded private repos.