Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google launched Live Threat Detection last year, which alerts users when a malicious app is identified.
- This feature is getting its own page, where it will presumably show which apps have been identified as threats.
- We have also discovered a new alert that warns about harmful apps monitoring your location or device activity.
Your Pixel phone contains a variety of safety and privacy features, like protection from spam calls and safeguards for lost devices. Among these features is Live Threat Detection, which launched last year. In our APK teardown, we discovered that some changes are coming for this tool.
In case you’re unaware of Live Threat Detection, it’s a feature that uses on-device AI models to identify harmful apps. If suspicious behavior is detected, you’ll receive a real-time alert warning you to take action to protect your device. In the image below, you can see an example of the notification you’ll get when a malicious app is discovered.
Don’t want to miss the best from Android Authority?
Outside notifications like this and a settings toggle to turn the feature on/off, there’s not much more to this feature. However, our investigation into version U.43.playstore.pixel3.819384620 of the Play Protect Service app revealed that the feature is getting a new page. This page (seen below) will presumably list the apps that have been identified as threats.
Additionally, we also discovered what appears to be a new alert. According to one of the strings of code we found, this alert will warn you that an unsafe app is monitoring your device location or activity.
Code
<string name="gpps_warning_card_summary_sw_1">This app can monitor your device location or activity</string>If you’re interested in other APK teardowns, we recently spotted that Google is testing putting the viral image editor, Nano Banana, in more areas. One of these places is in the Gemini overlay. You can check out our article to learn more
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
Thank you for being part of our community. Read our Comment Policy before posting.
