Android 15’s security and privacy features are the update’s highlight

Android 15 started rolling out to Pixel devices Tuesday and will arrive, through various third-party efforts, on other Android devices at some point. There is always a bunch of little changes to discover in an Android release, whether by reading, poking around, or letting your phone show you 25 new things after it restarts.

In Android 15, some of the most notable involve making your device less appealing to snoops and thieves and more secure against the kids to whom you hand your phone to keep them quiet at dinner. There are also smart fixes for screen sharing, OTP codes, and cellular hacking prevention, but details about them are spread across Google's own docs and blogs and various news site's reports.

Kevin Purdy at Ars Technica

It's a welcome collection of changes and features to better align Android' theft and personal privacy protection with how thieves steal phones in this day and age. I'm not sure I understand all of them, though - the Private Space, where you can drop applications to lock them behind an additional pin code, confuses me, since everyone can see it's there. I assumed Private Space would also give people in vulnerable positions - victims of abuse, journalists, dissidents, etc. - the option to truly hide parts of their life to protect their safety, but it doesn't seem to work that way.

Android 15 will also use AI" to recognise when a device is yanked out of your hands and lock it instantly, which is a great use case for AI" that actually benefits people. Of course, it will be even more useful once thieves are aware this feature exists, so that they won't even try to steal your phone in the first place, but since this is Android, it'll be a while before Android 15 makes its way to enough users for it to matter.