When was the last time you received a phone call from a real, genuine person you don’t know yet? I’m struggling to remember anything from the past three months that wasn’t a scammer, some poor loser working in an organized crime call center, or just a recording on the other end of an auto-dialer. Phone makers and service providers are oblivious to this, and Google’s latest attempt to fight back is only for Pixel owners.
According to the official Google Security Blog, the company is now using the power of its Gemini AI tools to protect Pixel devices from scammers in real-time. “Scam Detection uses powerful on-device AI to notify you of a potential scam call in real time by detecting call patterns commonly associated with scams,” the news release said. The system is in beta and will now be rolled out to the Pixel 6 and newer phones.
I guess the phrase “we tried to contact you about your car’s extended warranty” sets off about a million digital alarm bells, but Google specifically mentions an attempt to phish users with a fake bank account.
If the phone system detects a scam, you get an audible alert, a visual notification, and a haptic vibration – the modern phone trifecta that approximates a Red Alert on the Enterprise. It may seem like an exaggeration, but given the frequency of these scams, I don’t think you can be too careful. I happen to know a computer security professional with decades of experience who fell prey to one of these in a moment of inattention, to the tune of several thousand stolen dollars. No one is immune.
Google says the new system uses Gemini Nano and runs entirely on local Pixel hardware. That’s one of the reasons why it’s exclusive to the Pixel 6 and newer models. (A suspicious type might also wonder if this stuff could run on any Android device with an NPU… but I digress.) The call recordings never leave your phone’s isolated hardware, which is reassuring, but still requires a certain degree of trust.
If you don’t think Google has earned that trust (and who can blame you?), you’ll be even more reassured by the fact that this system is disabled by default.
Google is also expanding its protection system against malicious Android apps, adding a similar always-on detection system to Play Protect. The post says it can add real-time alerts based on apps’ “activity patterns,” taking into account newer malware techniques that let the app sleep for a while before taking action. This feature will also start on the Pixel 6 and newer, but Google says it’s coming to “additional phone manufacturers” in the coming months.
