Google to check anti-theft AI characteristic for telephones in Brazil

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Alphabet’s Google mentioned on Tuesday that Brazil would be the first nation to check an anti-theft characteristic for Android telephones that makes use of synthetic intelligence (AI) to establish when a cellphone has been stolen and lock the machine’s display screen.

Three kinds of lock will likely be accessible within the preliminary check part. In one in all them, Google will use AI that it created to assist detect alerts of “frequent motion related to theft” and block the display screen.

The second characteristic permits a consumer to lock the machine’s display screen remotely by getting into the cellphone quantity and finishing a safety problem from one other machine. The final mode includes mechanically locking the display screen if the machine is left with out web entry for lengthy durations.

The options will likely be accessible to Brazilian customers of Android telephones model 10 or larger beginning in July, in line with the corporate. They are going to be launched to customers from different nations regularly this 12 months, Google mentioned.

Telephone theft is a rising drawback in Brazil. The variety of stolen cellphones in Latin America’s largest economic system grew 16.6% in 2022 from the earlier 12 months to almost 1 million, in line with knowledge from the 2023 Brazilian Public Safety Yearbook.

The Brazilian authorities launched an app in December named Celular Seguro, which permits customers to report a stolen cellphone and block entry to it utilizing one other machine belonging a trusted particular person.

As of final month, round 2 million folks have been registered with the app throughout the nation, whereas 50,000 telephones had been blocked, in line with the Justice Ministry.

(Reporting by Patricia Vilas Boas in Sao Paulo; writing by Luana Maria Benedito; enhancing by Rod Nickel)