One of the leaders of the private messaging app Signal called the feature ‘dangerous’ for its ability to potentially spy on users.
ogle security feature that promises to detect and warn users about scam phone calls is facing concerns it could be abused for spying purposes.
“This is incredibly dangerous,” said Meredith Whittaker, the president of a foundation for the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal.
On Tuesday, Google debuted the security feature, which uses the company’s Gemini Nano AI model to detect and flag the scam phone calls in real-time. In a demo, the tech giant showed the security system warning the user about one such simulated scam call involving the fraudster impersonating a bank.
So far, Google hasn’t detailed how the system fully works. But in a blog post, the company said the feature is designed to detect “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams,” suggesting Google’s AI model will potentially listen in on all your phone calls — or at least ones it suspects come from a fraudster.
