On Thursday, Google announced<\/a> the expansion of its real-time scam-detection feature, which uses Gemini Nano to analyze calls on-device and flag potential fraud without recording audio or sending data to Google\u2019s servers. The feature is off by default and applies only to calls from unknown numbers, and it plays a beep during the conversation to notify participants. It debuted in the U.S. in March<\/a> as a beta for English-speaking Pixel 9 users.<\/p>\n Google confirmed to TechCrunch that its on-device scam detection will initially work only on Pixel 9 and later models in India and will be limited to English-speaking users, with its warning also English only. That restricts its reach in a market where Android accounts for nearly 96% of smartphones<\/a>, per Statcounter, but Pixel devices held less than 1% share<\/a> in 2024. The language limitation is also notable in a country where most users primarily rely on non-English languages \u2014 an audience that Google<\/a> and others like Amazon<\/a> have acknowledged by adding support for Indian languages across their services in recent years.<\/p>\n The tech giant did say it was working to bring scam detection to non-Pixel Android phones, as well, without offering a timeline.<\/p>\n Google also announced a pilot in India with financial apps Navi, Paytm, and Google Pay aimed at limiting screen-sharing scams, in which fraudsters persuade victims to share their screens to obtain one-time passwords, PINs, and other credentials during a call. The feature was first announced at Google I\/O<\/a> in May and initially tested in the U.K.<\/p>\n Users with devices running Android 11 or later will be able to access the alerts, which include a one-tap option to end the call and stop screen sharing. Google confirmed to TechCrunch that it plans to add more app partners and the feature will display alerts in Indian languages as well but did not provide details.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco For several months, Google has also been using its Play Protect service<\/a> to restrict predatory loan apps in India by blocking the sideloading of third-party apps that request sensitive permissions often exploited for fraud. The company said the service blocked more than 115 million such installation attempts this year. Google Pay, meanwhile, surfaces more than a million warnings each week for transactions flagged as potentially fraudulent, according to the company.<\/p>\n Google is also running its DigiKavach awareness campaign on digital fraud, which it said has reached more than 250 million people. The company has worked with the Reserve Bank of India to publish a public list of authorized digital lending apps and their associated non-banking financial companies to help limit malicious actors.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Google launched a Safety Charter<\/a> in India to expand its AI-driven fraud detection and security efforts, part of a broader plan to deploy more AI tools in the country to address rising fraud.<\/p>\n Yet Google still faces significant gaps in curbing digital fraud in India. The company \u2014 like Apple \u2014 has been questioned for allowing fake and misleading apps<\/a> to appear on its app store despite review processes meant to block fraudulent submissions.<\/p>\n In recent years, police<\/a> and security researchers<\/a> have flagged investment and loan apps used in scams that remained available on the Play Store until intervention. These cases underscore the challenges Google faces in policing an ecosystem that dominates the country\u2019s smartphone market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google is bringing more AI muscle to India\u2019s fight against digital fraud, rolling out on-device scam detection for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,771,363,364,367,25026,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-145658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-android","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-google","13":"tag-google-play","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/google-scam-detection-warning.jpg\")
Image Credits:Google<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n