Pixel and Galaxy Owners Should Enable This New Android Anti-Theft Feature
Lock screens are a good way to protect your data, but thieves who steal your smartphone while it’s unlocked (or after seeing your password) and then reset all your data with one tap are still a real security risk. Apple combats this vulnerability with Anti-Stolen Device Protection , and now, in Android 15, Google has a similar feature called Identity Check.
Identity verification ensures that strangers in public places can’t change your Android smartphone’s account settings without first going through secondary biometric authentication. First, you set up one or more trusted locations, such as your home. Then, if someone outside of one of these locations gets your phone and tries to access your passwords, change your PIN, or disable Find My Device, they will first need to go through a biometric lock.
This feature is being rolled out for the first time on Pixel devices and any Samsung Galaxy device running One UI 7. But as with most new Android features, it will slowly start rolling out to other devices as more manufacturers update their own software. . According to Google’s blog , other manufacturers will add support “later this year.”
Identity Check protection is quite strong: it blocks settings such as restarting the smartphone, changing the screen lock, creating a new fingerprint ID, disabling Find My Device, adding a new Google account, accessing developer options, and accessing passwords and access keys to the Password Manager.
The main difference between Android identity verification and protection against stolen Apple devices is the time delay. Apple essentially doesn’t allow you to change any important settings while in an unknown location unless you wait an hour first. It might be a little frustrating, but that hour could give someone enough time to remotely wipe your device. Android should perhaps follow suit.
For now, you will have to enable identity verification manually. Go to Settings > Google Account > All Services > Anti-Theft . Here, enable the “Use Identity Verification” feature.
Here, you can also click the Manage button to add trusted locations, such as your workplace or home. To disable this feature, you will need to either authenticate using biometrics or sign in to your Google account.
Along with this update, Google is also rolling out AI-powered theft detection blocking to all supported devices running Android 10 or higher ( the feature was released last year for Pixel users ). This feature detects when your smartphone is forcibly taken from you using data from your smartphone’s built-in sensors, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. You can turn it on in Settings > Google Account > All Services > Security anti-theft” > “Lock when theft is detected” .