Google wants to listen to your calls to detect scams and spam

You mobile it sounds non-stop. It’s an unknown number, but you answer. On the other side, a voice offers a call from your bank and asks you to transfer money. At this point, your device will vibrate and a warning will appear on the screen: “You may spam“.

Google wants to make this feature a reality. At a developer conference held on Tuesday, the US tech giant announced its intention to implement a new feature that will use one of its artificial intelligence (AI), Gemini Nanoto detect and warn users about possible fraud during phone call. To do this, the system will listen in real time to “conversation patterns typically associated with fraud“.

With this function, a transnational corporation led by Sundar Pichai designed to help users of the mobile operating system Android – the most popular in the world is ahead Manzana– don’t be a victim fraud telephone calls or commercial calls that become increasingly repetitive. Google hasn’t set a specific rollout date for the feature, but has indicated that it will be optional.

Privacy risk?

However, this measure has raised concerns among experts in the field confidentiality, which warn of the dangers of Google monitoring users’ phone conversations. “This is incredibly dangerous. This lays the foundation for centralized device-level scanning on the client side,” he decried. Meredith Whittakerpresident of encrypted messaging app signalin a message published on the social network X, in which he expresses his fears that the system could be used with other goals. “It’s only a small step from detecting ‘fraud’ to ‘finding patterns commonly associated with seeking reproductive care’ or ‘commonly associated with the provision of LGBT resources’ or ‘commonly associated with reporting of tech workers.’

“It creates an infrastructure for client-side scanning on the device for other purposes that regulators and legislators will want to abuse,” the technology scientist added. Michael VealProfessor at the Faculty of Law, University College London.

Cryptographer and security technologist Matthew Greenprofessor at Johns Hopkins University, shared Whittaker’s concerns and warned that European Union takes another step forward with a bill aimed at combating child sexual abuse.

Favorable Vision

This Gemini Nano-based detection model will run locally on each of the devices. This means that the system will listen to your calls and analyze them using the artificial intelligence integrated into your mobile phone, without automatically downloading their content to the phone. cloud.

According to other experts, this configuration “preserves unprecedented privacy.” “Of all the many ways you can be wiretapped on your phone on an Android device, adding AI here is a net advantage,” the computer scientist said. David A. DalrympleProgram Director of ARIA, the UK government’s research funding agency.