Why Android 15 cell community safety adjustments are a no-show

Google lastly rolled out the steady Android 15 replace to Pixel gadgets right now, delivering many new options like Non-public House, app archiving, predictive again animations, and extra. Nonetheless, the steady replace doesn’t embrace a few of the options we noticed throughout the Android 15 beta program, such because the entry level for the Machine Diagnostics app in Settings, in addition to the brand new mobile safety features that Google introduced at I/O. Right here’s why the Android 15 replace doesn’t function these new mobile safety capabilities.

For a little bit of context, the primary beta of Android 15 launched a brand new settings web page known as “mobile community safety” below Settings > Safety & privateness > Extra safety & privateness. This web page was later renamed to “cell community safety” in a later beta, which additionally added an outline that acknowledged “these settings assist shield your calls, messages, and information from outdated or unencrypted networks that might expose you to information theft or surveillance.”

On the cell community safety web page, there have been two toggles: “community notifications” and “permit solely encrypted networks.” The “community notifications” function permits you to “get notified when your system connects to an unencrypted community, or when a community data your distinctive system or SIM ID.” The “permit solely encrypted networks” setting improves the safety of your cell community connections at the price of limiting your community choices in some areas, however emergency calls ought to nonetheless undergo.

As Google defined at I/O, these mobile safety features had been aimed toward “defend[ing] towards abuse by criminals utilizing cell web site simulators to listen in on customers or ship them SMS-based fraud messages.” The technical phrases for these Android 15 options had been Mobile Cipher Transparency and Identifier Disclosure Transparency, and so they’re designed to shield you from rogue “stingray” monitoring gadgets.

Whereas it’s true that these options are a part of Android 15’s supply code, they’re not accessible by default as a result of they “require system OEM integration and appropriate {hardware},” in keeping with Google. On condition that these options appeared accessible to Pixel customers throughout the Android 15 beta, although, it will appear cheap to imagine that Pixel telephones help them. That’s not truly the case, because it seems, because the visibility of the “cell community safety” settings web page on Pixel telephones was only a mistake.

It seems that none of the present crop of Pixel telephones — not even the 4 telephones within the Google Pixel 9 collection — at the moment help Android 15’s new mobile safety features. Google truly went forward and hid the “cell community safety” settings web page from Pixel customers in Android 15 Beta 4 after which prevented it from showing in searches in Android 15 Beta 4.2, in keeping with an Concern Tracker publish. In a now-deleted touch upon that very same Concern Tracker publish, a Googler explicitly acknowledged that the visibility of Android 15’s cell community safety settings is tied to {hardware} help.

That remark was made earlier than the launch of the Pixel 9 collection, leaving the likelihood that perhaps Google’s newest gadgets help the function. Nonetheless, I confirmed right now that the web page doesn’t seem on even the Pixel 9 Professional after updating it to Android 15. It’s potential that may change in a future launch, although, as Google’s point out of {hardware} help might seek advice from radio driver/HAL help that it may implement with the assistance of its modem supplier (Samsung).

Google at I/O mentioned that it was “working with the Android ecosystem to carry these options to customers” and that it “count on[s] OEM adoption to progress over the subsequent couple of years,” so hopefully these new mobile safety features will truly make their solution to some Android gadgets within the close to future.