Member-only story
Android's New Sensitive Content Scanner: A Blessing or a Breach?
Google has introduced a new feature in Android that scans your photos for 'sensitive content' before you send them. While this aims to prevent accidental sharing of explicit images, it raises significant privacy and security concerns.
How It Works
The feature utilizes SafetyCore, Google's on-device machine learning system, to analyze images for nudity and other sensitive material. When you attempt to send such content, SafetyCore prompts a warning, giving you a chance to reconsider. Google assures that this process occurs entirely on-device, meaning your images aren't sent to their servers.
Privacy Implications
Despite Google's assurances, the idea of a system scanning personal photos can be unsettling if not straight out scary. Even if the analysis is local, the presence of SafetyCore means your device is continuously processing your images, potentially exposing them to vulnerabilities. Moreover, if the feature is enabled by default, many users might be unaware of its existence or how to disable it.
The information concerning this update is publicly available the service feature however, came with a system update, one you had no say in because no such option was given to you. Chances are you have this on at the moment and didn’t…
