Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is no longer backporting security patches to Android 12 or 12L, as both operating systems have reached end-of-life status.
- This means that device makers will have to backport security patches on their own if they want to provide security updates to their Android 12 or 12L devices.
- Few manufacturers have the resources or desire to do this, so if you still have an Android 12 or 12L device, it’s time to upgrade if you value security.
We spend a lot of time talking about the best Android phones and the latest Android version, but most people don’t have the newest devices with the most up-to-date Android release. In fact, the latest available data from Google showed that the majority of users are still running Android 12 or earlier. Because most users don’t have access to the latest Android version, Google backports security patches to older releases so users with older devices stay secure. However, Google doesn’t maintain support for older releases forever, and Android 12 is the next release that will lose support.
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Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
The latest Android version distribution statistics are almost a year old but show that older Android versions still have a huge share of the market.
Google published the Android Security Bulletin for April 2025 last week. The bulletin lists the security vulnerabilities that are patched in builds with the April 2025 Security Patch Level. It also specifies which Android versions have available patches, and notably, patches for Android 12 and 12L are missing.
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
The Android Security Bulletin for April 2025 shows that security patches for Android 12 and 12L are no longer available.
Although Google hasn’t publicly confirmed why, Android Authority can confirm that Google ended support for Android 12 and 12L as of March 31, 2025. According to a source, Google terminated security patch backports for Android 12 and 12L on March 31, 2025, with the Android Security Bulletin for March 2025 being the last bulletin to list patches for those two releases.
For reference, Google released Android 12 on October 4, 2021, and Android 12L on March 7, 2022. This means it’s been almost 3.5 years since Android 12’s release and 3 years since Android 12L’s release. Google typically backports security patches for 3.5 years after a new Android version’s release, so Android 12 and 12L reaching end-of-life aligns with past releases. However, given how many users are still on these releases, it’s still worth noting.
What happens next?
With Google ending support, device makers will need to manually backport security patches if they want to provide support for existing devices running Android 12 or 12L. That shouldn’t be an issue for larger companies like Huawei, whose latest EMUI release is still based on Android 12, nor for companies with extended support contracts, but it could pose a problem for companies with fewer resources.
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
Although Huawei is shifting away from Android, its latest versions of EMUI are still based on the open source version of Android 12.
However, companies that truly care about their devices’ security should provide regular Android OS version upgrades. Google engineers fix many bugs and security issues that aren’t documented in the Android Security Bulletin and therefore aren’t backported to older releases. These security issues go unlabeled because the engineers don’t even know they’re security vulnerabilities. This is why Google encourages companies to routinely upgrade their devices’ OS versions and kernel builds.
If you have a phone or tablet running Android 12 or 12L, it’s a good time to upgrade your device. Your device will still receive security updates for Google apps and Project Mainline modules, but it likely won’t receive any more security updates that fix core Android OS issues. In fact, it likely won’t receive any more updates at all since Google ended approvals of new Android 12-based builds a while ago. It’s probably safe to repurpose your old Android 12 device as a security camera or dedicated media player, but I would advise against using it as your primary device.
