This New Android 16 Feature Shows That Google Is Serious About Security

Security is one of the most important subjects in tech nowadays. A major gateway into our private data happens to be our phones. We keep a ton of sensitive information on these devices, and there are always people who want it. Well, Android 16 has a new API that tells apps when you have Advanced Protection activated. It can make your phone much more secure.

If you’re unfamiliar with this, you’re a couple of years behind the times. Google introduced Advanced Protection back in 2017. When you have it activated, your phone will be more secure than others. Advanced Protection will disable sideloading apps, require a passkey to sign in to your account, and block you from downloading potentially harmful files. Android 16 brought some new security features to Advanced Protection. It disables 2G and adds MTE.

Phones without Advanced Protection on will be given a warning when sideloading and downloading potentially harmful files. However, if you have it on, the system will block these functions outright.

Android 16 will let apps know when you have Advanced Protection activated

Advanced Protection is great, but it’s only for the Android system. It doesn’t have an effect on your apps. different apps have their own security settings, and if you care about security, you’ll have to go into each app and manage the settings individually. That can be a pain.

However, Google introduced a new API called AdvancedProtectionManager. This API will communicate with the apps that you download. In doing so, it will tell them if you have Advanced Protection activated on your phone. Ostensibly, when the app detects that your phone has it activated, it can enable different security settings automatically. This means that you won’t have to go in and manually change settings.

One thing to note is that this was discovered during an APK deep-dive. Code for this feature was found in the Android operating system. However, we can’t say for sure that Google will launch this feature. So, you’ll want to take this news with a grain of salt. We’re currently in the Android 16 beta stage, so anything could change.