New Delhi, India: To Promote improved privacy and security on Android Google is enacting new restrictions that prevent apps from offering users call recording apps.
In order to keep its developer regulations up to date, Google has made some adjustments to its Play Store Policy, which will take effect on May 11th. One of those modifications is aimed at permanently removing call recording apps from Android. On the Play Store, app developers would not be allowed to use the Accessibility API for call recording. A Reddit user pointed out that Google’s new Play Store standards will make it illegal for any app to record calls remotely.
Google isn’t the first company to try to prevent call recording. The tech behemoth has been lobbying to put a stop to it call recording on Android for some time.
Google has already disabled real-time call recording on Android 6, and with Android 10, it has fully removed the feature from its handsets. However, some apps exploited a flaw in Android to gain access to the Accessibility Service and continue to support call recording on devices running Android 10 and higher.
Another reason could be because phone recording rules differ from one country to the next. However, as Google adopts the new adjustments next month, this will no longer be viable. Google addressed the rules in a developer webinar streamed live just a few hours ago, saying, “The Accessibility API is not designed and cannot be accessed for remote call audio recording.”
“If the app is the default dialer on the phone and also pre-loaded,” the presenter explained in the developer webinar on the Google Play policy updates, “accessibility capability is not necessary to get access to the incoming audio stream, and hence will not be in violation.”
Over the course of multiple Android releases, Google has been gradually deprecating and eliminating APIs that enable call recording. This is done in the name of privacy and security, as well as the fact that call recording rules vary greatly from country to country. Call recording is disabled by default on Android 10. To get around the ban, Play Store apps began recording calls using the Accessibility API.
However, Google’s restriction only applies to third-party call recording apps on the Android platform Play Store. Native call recording functionality on phones such as the Google Pixels or Xiaomi phones with the Mi Dialer will not be affected.