Losing your phone or having it stolen has to be the most gut-wrenching feeling ever. Yes, there’s the financial aspect of losing a shiny new flagship, but the data loss implications are even worse.
Knowing that your phone is out there, susceptible to unauthorized access, is stressful. Google has measures in place to help you alleviate some of the concerns in said situations, and it looks like those protections are in for a significant upgrade.
Currently, when you lose your Android phone, you have the option to remotely secure your device with a PIN, password, or pattern. This allows you to keep tracking your phone. Alternatively, users also have the option to wipe their device clean, albeit the step comes with a major drawback.
Once you remotely factory reset your device, you can no longer track it via the Find Hub (Find My Device). The former is neat, because it gives your personal phone data some security, all while keeping it trackable. The latter, on the other hand, makes your personal data completely inaccessible, while eliminating any hope of recovering your device via Find Hub tracking as a byproduct.
When remotely marked as lost or secured via a PIN, password, or pattern, whoever has access to your lost device can not get in without authentication, but they do have the option to pull down your notification and Quick Settings bars, access lock screen widgets, and even your default digital assistant. While this in itself doesn’t pose a risk to your personal phone data, these routes have the potential to be exploited in the future. Google wants to seal off said routes, and that’s precisely what it is doing with Android 16.
Coming to Find Hub soon?
As highlighted by credible Android analyst Mishaal Rahman in a report for Android Authority, Google’s Android 16 offers a new ‘Secure Lock’ feature. As the feature’s name suggests, it aims to offer enhanced functionality to securely lock down your device, and it does so by restricting access to actions mentioned above (notification and Quick Settings bars, lock screen widgets, default digital assistant). Here’s how Google describes the feature in a commit in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP):
Secure Lock is a new feature that enables users to remotely lock down their mobile device via authorized clients into an enhanced security state, which restricts access to sensitive data (app notifications, widgets, quick settings, assistant, etc) and requires both credential and biometric authentication for device entry.
In addition to preventing access to the aforementioned tools, the feature also enhances your device’s security by requiring both credential and biometric authentication access.
For what it’s worth, the feature can only be enabled by privileged system apps that have the new MANAGE_SECURE_LOCK_DEVICE permission. While the feature isn’t live just yet, Google’s Find Hub is primed to get it, especially since a recent version of the Google Play Services app already includes this very permission. Play Services, for reference, powers the Find Hub.
The option to Secure Lock will likely be incorporated with Find Hub’s ‘Secure Device’ functionality, complete with the option to display a custom message on the stolen/lost phone’s lock screen.
