Announced last May, Android’s new features relating to phone theft are appearing for more and more mobile users around the world. A quick tour of what’s new.
If you’ve ever had your phone stolen, you know how complicated it can be to secure your mobile and lock it remotely to avoid having your data siphoned off. Fortunately, Google will make this bad experience a little more tolerable thanks to the arrival of a trio of features.
Announced a few months ago, the new theft protection features are slowly starting to arrive on different Android mobiles around the world. As noted Android Authorityseveral Internet users in the United States, Brazil and France have seen these new options appear discreetly on their phones in recent days.
A tour of the new features
This new software focus is structured around three specific functionalities:
- Protection against theft : an option which, once activated, will automatically lock your phone if a sudden gesture is detected by the accelerometer. The idea is that a sudden change in orientation followed by a swing characteristic of a running person signals snatching.
- Offline locking : a software routine that locks your phone if it is kept offline for a certain period of time. This prevents thieves from being able to activate airplane mode to make the phone unreachable.
- Remote locking made simple : already accessible via the Find my Device tool, remote locking theoretically makes it possible to prevent anyone from accessing their data by blocking access to their mobile from the dedicated website. This functionality will be improved by allowing the locking of your mobile via the linked telephone number and no longer via the Google account.
Where to find these features?
These three features have started to be deployed by Google on all phones running Android 10 and above.
To find out if you have access to it, you can go to the settings of your mobile within the sous-menu Google. In the “All services» under the section «Device security“, a new entry “Theft protection» should appear if your phone is one of the lucky ones.
To go further
How to secure your smartphone, tablet or PC? The ultimate guide!
Don’t panic if the functionality is not yet available on your device, this type of software deployment often takes several weeks to be finalized. So have a little patience, Google hasn’t forgotten you.
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