(Credit: Google)
A new update from Google will be able to tell you when to hang up on calls from friends and family—because those pals and relatives are not actually on the line.
This fake call detection feature, announced Tuesday, relies on encrypted back-channel communication between your phone and the Android phones of the real contacts being spoofed.
Provided both devices run at least the 2021-vintage Android 12 and the Phone by Google app—not a third-party dialer from Samsung or another firm—your contact’s phone will verify a real call by sending an end-to-end-encrypted confirmation signal to your phone.
As Google explains, the absence of that signal will lead your device to ping the contact’s device for confirmation: “If their real device says, ‘I'm not making a call right now,’ you'll get a warning on your screen advising you to hang up immediately.”
The threat model here targets both spoofed phone numbers—easily generated with mobile apps—and frighteningly effective AI deepfake audio tools.
Today, your security-aware responses to a strange call from a family member suddenly asking for a financial or other favor include calling them back via phone or video, confirming that it’s them by asking about a bit of shared experience that only they should know, or exchanging a secret word or phrase if you both thought to agree on one up-front.
Google explains that this feature relies on the encrypted infrastructure of RCS messaging. For years, RCS was an Android-only proposition, but Apple’s belated move to support RCS in iOS now includes end-to-end encryption for RCS chats between iPhone and Android users. So, while Google will first ship this feature on its own Pixel phones, its post says the technology here is open to “other apps and device manufacturers.”
Also Coming to Android...
Also today, Google announced a set of additional Android features. The most relevant one for people with cross-platform contacts is expanded support for sending files to nearby iPhones via the QuickShare tool. Google first revealed this interoperability in November and has been steadily expanding its availability; Tuesday’s post says AirDrop support will come to “more Android devices” but offers no further specifics.
(For devices that still don’t have this option, the free, open-source LocalSend can help bridge these platform gaps when installed on both an Android phone and an iPhone or iPad.)
Two other items in this feature drop put fashion first. On phones running Android 14 or newer releases, the AI-powered Circle to Search feature can help you find where to buy the attire and accessories seen in a picture of somebody. And a new Wardrobe feature in Google Photos will catalog the clothes you’re wearing in photos of you; its rollout starts this week on phones running at least Android 10 in the US, Brazil, and India.
Kids under 13 with Android phones—a larger demographic than you might expect—get new features in Google’s Personal Safety app that include showing their emergency contacts and medical information on a phone’s lock screen and the option to turn on car crash detection.
Google Play Books, an app that historically hasn’t done much to distinguish itself from other ereader apps, is gaining a reading-companion feature that can catch you up with previous events in a book or answer questions about characters. That may seem silly, but I won’t rule out its utility with such famously dense works as James Joyce’s Ulysses or David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
Finally, because no Android feature drop seems to complete without some emoji feature, this one includes yet another set of new combinations possible in the Gboard app’s Emoji Kitchen tool.