One of the leaders of the private messaging app Signal calls the feature 'dangerous' because it could potentially spy on users.
Google’s AI model will potentially listen in on all your phone calls — or at least ones it suspects are coming from a fraudster.
To protect the user’s privacy, the company says Gemini Nano operates locally, without connecting to the internet. “This protection all happens on-device, so your conversation stays private to you. We’ll share more about this opt-in feature later this year,” the company says.
“This is incredibly dangerous,” says Meredith Whittaker, the president of a foundation for the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal.
Whittaker —a former Google employee— argues that the entire premise of the anti-scam call feature poses a potential threat. That’s because Google could potentially program the same technology to scan for other keywords, like asking for access to abortion services.
“It lays the path for centralized, device-level client-side scanning,” she said in a post on Twitter/X. “From detecting ‘scams’ it’s a short step to ‘detecting patterns commonly associated w/ seeking reproductive care’ or ‘commonly associated w/ providing LGBTQ resources’ or ‘commonly associated with tech worker whistleblowing.’”
I feel like this would require cooperation from the manufacturer, as Google doesn’t actually provide the Phone app (except when they are the manufacturer).
except that it does. some OEMs like Samsung serve their own (or at least Samsung used to; not sure if it’s still true), but it’s definitely available on non-Google-branded phones.
It’s available on all phones, but they all have their own version, forked from long ago. Even the standard AOSP Phone app has long split from Google (who have ceased open source development of the app).
I’m well aware that it’s available to install on all phones, but I’m also fairly sure that other OEMs do use it as the default dialer, too. I saw it preinstalled on one of my mom’s phones, either her current midrange Samsung, or her previous Xiaomi.
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I feel like this would require cooperation from the manufacturer, as Google doesn’t actually provide the Phone app (except when they are the manufacturer).
Yes they do. Anyone can download the Google Phone app.
But downloading an app won’t install it as a system app.
What difference does that make?
They seem to be offering a lot of this sort of thing as a value-add for buying a Pixel
They might be taking about Google Fi.
except that it does. some OEMs like Samsung serve their own (or at least Samsung used to; not sure if it’s still true), but it’s definitely available on non-Google-branded phones.
It’s available on all phones, but they all have their own version, forked from long ago. Even the standard AOSP Phone app has long split from Google (who have ceased open source development of the app).
I’m well aware that it’s available to install on all phones, but I’m also fairly sure that other OEMs do use it as the default dialer, too. I saw it preinstalled on one of my mom’s phones, either her current midrange Samsung, or her previous Xiaomi.