I easily scammed Google’s new Scam Detection feature

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Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority


Earlier this year, Google rolled out a new feature for Android phones called Theft Detection Lock. Ostensibly, when a thief quickly grabs your phone out of your hands and then makes a run for it, this feature uses sensors in the phone to understand what’s happened and then trigger a lockdown. This won’t get your phone back, but it will at least help prevent the thief from accessing any of your sensitive data.

While this sounds great, there was just one problem: it didn’t work that well. In our testing of Theft Detection Lock, we found that a thief would need to grab your phone and then run or drive with it in a very specific way for the lockdown to initiate. If the thief doesn’t do this, well…no lockdown for you. I highly recommend reading that article, as it’s a fun one.




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