Google is adding Android tools that hide sensitive screens, warn about risky links and block fake bank calls, aiming to stop scams before money or codes are handed over.
Google has announced a set of new Android protections against scam calls, texts and fake links. The goal is to step in before you hand over a password, card number or one-time code. Google says its current scam detection in Phone by Google and Google Messages already flags more than five million suspected scam messages each month.
Google Messages is getting an opt-in setting called Enhanced Protection. It will roll out in the near future. It expands Scam Detection so Gemini, Google's AI, can look at the context of conversations with unfamiliar senders. That helps catch slow scams, where a criminal builds trust over several messages before asking for money or sending a link. Google says this analysis happens in an encrypted environment that Google employees cannot access.
Link checks are also getting stronger. Scammers keep creating new fake websites that are not yet on any blocklist. Google says its on-device model, Gemini Nano, will combine live web signals with local checks to judge unfamiliar links before you tap them. Links from numbers not saved in your contacts will get redesigned warnings.
Call forwarding matters because criminals can trick people into entering a code that sends verification calls to a number the criminals control. Hiding screens during screen sharing matters because scammers often pose as bank or tech support and ask victims to share their screen so they can watch passwords and card details.
Google is also expanding a verified financial calls feature, built with banks including Banco do Brasil and Itaú Unibanco. It checks whether a call claiming to be from the bank was really started by the bank's official app. If the check fails, Android ends the call and tells the user. Google says it has blocked more than three million spoofed calls involving those Brazilian banks since last June.
Google says it is working with Android device makers to bring chat notification alerts to hundreds of millions of users later this year. Exact dates for Enhanced Protection were not given, and the material does not say which phones will get each feature first. Google still advises never sharing passwords, card details, recovery codes or one-time codes on calls or texts, even if the caller sounds believable.
Android's new tools may add a safety net, but never share passwords, card details or codes on a call or text, even if the caller seems real.
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