Billions of Android phones are getting new tools to stop phone thieves from accessing your information and to slow down their criminal behavior, Google announced today at its I/O developer conference. Android phones will soon use artificial intelligence to automatically detect when they have been snatched from your hand and lock themselves, as part of the new changes that include adding extra protections to secure your phone if it has been stolen.
The upgrades—some of which will come with the Android 15 operating system, while others will be compatible with older phones—come as phone companies are increasingly building extra measures into their software to thwart rampant levels of phone thefts and further protect people’s data. As well as the stolen phone tools, Google is introducing new changes to Android 15 that will scan how apps are using “sensitive permissions” in real time to detect potentially suspicious app activities.
Around the world, phone thefts are a huge problem—in London, for example, a phone is stolen every six minutes. Thieves riding electric bikes or scooters can snatch phones out of people’s hands, pickpockets can easily nab devices from bags, and others are known to peer over shoulders to learn a phone’s PIN before they steal the device.
Stolen phones can be resold if they are unlocked or passed on to others who can break them down for parts and sell those components. However, some criminals will also try to access banking or crypto apps and transfer money. “The thieves profit from the physical device themselves, but they also increasingly are trying to get into the content of the device, where the most valuable data is stored,” Jianing Sandra Guo, an Android security and privacy product manager at Google, tells WIRED. Some thieves, if they have a locked phone, spam people with phishing emails and messages to friends to try and get login details.
Google’s anti-theft tools have been designed to add more protection before a phone is stolen, during the theft, and after a phone has been taken, Guo explains. In keeping with Google’s and the wider tech industry’s push, some of these have been built using artificial intelligence as a key component.
Jared Keller
Reece Rogers
Written by Brian Barrett
Co-author: Lauren Goode
Android’s new Theft Detection Lock utilizes Google’s AI to identify when your phone has been abruptly taken away. Upon noticing this, the device’s screen is immediately locked. Google’s algorithms were trained to recognize sudden shifts in the device’s position and the associated movements that might suggest it has been grabbed, by using smartphone sensors like the accelerometer and gyroscope.
The pattern of phone theft often follows a sequence – a sudden grab of the phone, switching hands, followed by the thief attempting to escape on foot, bike, or even a car, as described by Guo. To get these features accurate, Google’s research team examined the common ways phones are stolen. Scenarios of theft were then mimicked within the teams to gather data on what a typical robbery might appear like.
According to Guo, thieves who steal phones frequently use the camera app when they are unaware of the phone’s PIN, in order to maintain access to the device. Additionally, they often aim to disconnect it from cellular networks for extended durations to avoid being remotely locked out of the apparatus. With the new Offline Device Lock, if the setting is engaged, your screen will lock whenever your phone is offline for an extended period.
To enhance defenses prior to a phone’s theft, Google indicated in a blog post that the firm is rolling out four data protection functionalities designed to ensure your data remains secure. Initially, it will prevent your device from being configured after a factory data reset, unless your login credentials are known. Google vice president Suzanne Frey writes, “This makes a pilfered device unsellable, diminishing the motivation for phone theft.”
A new “private spaces” feature is now available, allowing for the storage of sensitive applications, such as those for banking, that necessitate a secondary PIN or the use of your biometrics, like fingerprints, for access. Extra authentication mechanisms are also being implemented: Should a thief attempt to disable Google’s Find My Device location-tracking service, they will be required to use your PIN, password, or biometric data to unlock it. And, if the thief knows your PIN, you can even mandate biometric authentication to alter crucial Google account and device settings, including changing the PIN or deactivating anti-theft controls.
These supplemental authentication measures resemble those introduced by Apple in its Stolen Device Protection system, which debuted with iOS 17.3 earlier this year. However, Google’s theft motion detection is even more comprehensive than these tools. All anti-theft initiatives aim not only to secure the data stored on phones, but also to render it more challenging for criminals to misuse devices once they are in their possession. Making it more difficult for criminals to resell phones or transfer funds could potentially serve as a deterrent against thefts.
If your phone does get stolen, Android already allowsphones to be locked and wiped. However, Guo says, the experience of having a phone swiped from your hands is a “traumatic” experience, and in the aftermath, people may not remember all their Google account login details to close off access to the phone. To address this, Google’s new Remote Lock feature will allow people to lock their phone using just a phone number. “The content of the device is protected, and it buys the user a lot of time … to be able to organize themselves and do further remediation,” Guo says.
Jared Keller
Reece Rogers
Brian Barrett
Author: Lauren Goode
Google’s new protections around factory resets will launch with Android 15, while some of the other features will be available later this year. Guo mentions that Google has attempted to make these features work on versions of the software as old as Android 10 where feasible.
There are other security and privacy updates coming with Android besides the anti-phone-theft tools. Google’s app safety system, Google Play Protect, scans billions of apps daily to detect malware. Now, this function is being expanded to perform live scanning on people’s devices to enhance suspicious behavior detection. “With live threat detection, Google Play Protect’s on-device AI will scrutinize additional behavioral signals related to the use of sensitive permissions and interactions with other apps and services,” states a blog post by Dave Kleidermacher, a Google vice president. Read more
Other security-related updates coming to Android 15 are concealing notifications and one-time passwords from appearing while you’re screen sharing, hiding login details while logging in to an app or a website during screen sharing, and detecting unencrypted cell connections and alerting users if a “potential false cellular base station” or an IMSI catcher that is logging a user’s phone is nearby. Read more
Updated 2:45 pm ET, May 15, 2024, to clarify that several new features will be included in updates that are separate from Android 15 itself, according to Google.
