Google is rolling out a new set of features designed to make it harder for thieves to access your data. Mishaal Rahman said in a Reddit post that after seeing that his Xiaomi Mi 14T Pro phone now has theft detection lock and offline device lock (two of three features announced by Google in May), these features will be coming to the new is being updated. Others say they’ve only seen the third type, called distal locking.
The most notable new feature is Theft Detection Lock, which uses artificial intelligence to lock your screen when it detects “common actions associated with theft,” such as someone snatching your phone from you. At the same time, offline device lock will lock the device’s screen when the device is offline for a period of time, and remote lock allows users to lock the phone with only a phone number when they cannot log in to “Find My Device” using a password.
So far, I haven’t seen any of the features on my Pixel 6.
Theft detection lock and offline device lock are supported on any Android device running Android 10 and above, while you need at least Android 5 for remote lock. If you don’t have these features yet, you can try updating Google Play Services, although Google tends to roll out new features over time rather than rolling them out to everyone at once, so, like me, you may have to wait.
