Together with the release of its second Android 15 beta, Google is revealing a number of new security features, one of which is the ability to recognize when your phone is snatched from your grasp. Though theft detection and several other capabilities will also be accessible on phones with significantly earlier OS versions, making them accessible to a much wider audience, some of these changes will be bundled with Android 15 when it launches this autumn.
The way the Theft Detection Lock operates is by identifying the peculiar movements that would suggest someone has dragged a table in front of you or your phone out of your grasp. The screen automatically locks to keep information on your device out of the hands of thieves. In addition to searching for additional indicators of foul play, the system can lock the screen to defend itself in the event that someone tries to remove it from the network to block remote access.
Additionally, Google is launching a new method for remotely locking your phone’s screen in case it falls into the wrong hands. You can lock your smartphone by going to android.com/lock, where you can input your phone number and answer a security question. This is a potentially useful feature if all you have access to right now is a friend’s phone. Later this year, a Google Play services upgrade for phones running Android 10 or later will bring all of these features to users.
Along with additional security features, Android 15 also offers “private spaces,” which let you store data and apps on your phone in a secret region that can be secured with a special PIN. Additionally, Google is implementing safeguards that need the owner’s credentials the next time a phone is set up in case it is forced to reset.
With the goal of “expanding Play Protect’s on-device AI capabilities with Google Play Protect live threat detection,” an upgrade for Android’s Play Protect is also being released. In order to detect indicators of phishing and fraud, it will examine how apps use private compute core without gathering data on your phone. Later this year, realtime threat detection will be added by Google Pixel, Honor, Lenovo, Nothing, OnePlus, Oppo, Sharp, Transsion, and other apps. If anything strange is found, potentially harmful apps are forwarded to Google for additional review.
Similar to the previous year, Google’s most recent operating system version had a diminishing impact on the company’s opening presentation at I/O.
