Google has announced two new real-time security privacy protections for Android, and they're rolling out now on supported Pixel devices.

"User safety is at the heart of everything we do at Google," Google's Lyubov Farafonova and Steve Kafka write. "Our mission to make technology helpful for everyone means building features that protect you while keeping your privacy top of mind. From Gmail's defenses that stop more than 99.9 percent of spam, phishing, and malware, to Google Messages' advanced security that protects users from 2 billion suspicious messages a month and beyond, we're constantly developing and expanding protection features that help keep you safe."

To this end, Google is introducing two new protections to Android. They are.

Scam Detection in Phone by Google. The Phone app will use on-device AI to provide real-time protection against scam phone calls, and it will display a visual warning along with an audio and haptic alert when it detects conversation patterns commonly associated with scams. Scam Detection is off by default, and you can disable it at any time, including during a particular call. No conversation audio or transcription is stored on the device, sent to Google servers or anywhere else, or retrievable after the call, Google notes.

Google Play Protect live threat detection with real-time alerts. Google Play Protect already provides real-time protection from malware and unsafe apps. But it will now provide real-time alerts when it detects threats so you can take immediate action to protect your Android device. Live threat detection will initially focus on stalkerware, which Google says is "code that may collect personal or sensitive data for monitoring purposes without user consent." And it is exploring expanding its detection to other types of harmful apps in the future. Live threat detection uses Private Compute Core, which protects users without collecting data.

Google is now rolling out Scam Detection to English-speaking Phone by Google public beta users in the U.S. with a Pixel 6 or newer device. It works best on Pixel 9 series devices thanks to Gemini Nano, but it uses "other robust Google on-device machine learning models" on older Pixel phones.

Live threat detection with real-time alerts in Google Play Protect is now available on Pixel 6 and newer devices. It is coming to additional phone makers in the coming months, Google says.