Google announces new real-time protection measures for Pixel phones

Google has introduced two new real-time protection features to enhance users’ safety: Scam Detection and Google Play Protect live threat protection.

Scam Detection is a new AI-powered anti-scam system that analyzes your phone calls in order to detect whether the caller is a scammer. Goal is to identify and stop scams before fraudsters can do harm.

“Scam Detection uses powerful on-device AI to notify you of a potential scam call happening in real-time by detecting conversation patterns commonly associated with scams,” Google explains in a blog post.

For example, if a caller claims to be an employee from the bank and urges you to transfer your savings to another bank account, Scam Detection processes the call to determine whether it’s spam or not. If so, a pop-up appears on the screen to warn users. The prompt includes a button to end the call, and a button you can use to tell Google it’s not a scam.

To protect your privacy, the Scam Detection feature is disabled by default. You can switch it on or off at any time for future calls using Google’s Phone app settings. The AI detection model and processing are fully on-device, meaning that no conversation audio or transcription is stored on the device, sent to Google’s servers, or retrievable after the call.

To better protect users from potentially harmful applications or PHAs, Google has developer Google Play Protect live threat detection. It analyzes behavioral signs related to the use of sensitive information on your device and interactions with other apps and services.

“By looking at actual activity patterns of apps, live threat detection can now find malicious apps that try extra hard to hide their behavior or lie dormant for a time before engaging in suspicious activity,” Google says.

If Google Play Protect live threat detection finds a PHA on your smartphone, you’ll receive a real-time alert on your screen telling you your device may be at risk so you can take action.

At launch, the new safety feature will focus on stalkerware. In the future Google will expand its threat detection to other types of PHAs, including adware, spyware, fleeceware and trojans.

Scam Detection is currently only available for Google public beta users in the United States on Pixel 6 and newer Pixel devices. Google Play Protection live threat detection is now available on Pixel 6 and newer devices, but will be coming to more Android devices in the coming months.