Overview
- Google announced Wednesday that it will begin a global rollout of Fake Call Detection in June 2026, starting on Pixel phones and on devices running Android 12 or newer via the Phone by Google app.
- The feature performs a silent, real-time 'handshake' over RCS between the caller’s device and the claimed contact’s device and shows a warning if that encrypted verification is missing.
- Protection only works when both the caller and the claimed contact use the Phone by Google app and RCS, so initial coverage will be limited to Pixel and other phones that adopt the same stack.
- Google said the feature is enabled by default, can be turned off in settings, and relies on end-to-end encryption to protect user privacy while reducing scams that use caller-ID spoofing and AI voice deepfakes.
- Built on Google’s earlier spoofing and verified-call work and the open RCS standard, the system could be adopted by other phone apps and manufacturers over time but Google has not given a timetable for wider availability.