As a solution to the increasing number of spam callers, Google has updated its phone app with spam detection. From today, a new version of the Phone app is rolling out to Nexus and Android One devices with built-in spam warning capability.
In 2013, Android phone app received its first major update by adding caller ID for incoming calls from businesses as part of the launch of Android KitKat. The new feature added takes this to advanced level of spam detection that it allows users to block and report spam numbers.
The users have to turn on their “Caller ID & spam protection” on their smartphones to avail this feature. Users can open the phone app, tap on more option, tap caller ID and spam protection, and turn on the feature. To report a number as spam, users can go to their “recent calls”, tap the call you want to mark as spam, and tap on “block/report spam” option to block. Via the new feature, Google can get the data from the users to recognize the sources of annoying calls.
Once activated and the user receives a call from a spam number, the display shows a huge red banner and explains that the number belongs to a "suspected spam caller." In case, if the number is legitimate to the user, he/she can mark it so that in future, that number will not be shown as spam.
For now, the feature can be activated only on Nexus and Android One handsets. It’s available on version 4.0 of the phone app. Hopefully, Google will soon expand it to other devices. Meanwhile, Apple has also integrated spam detection in its new iOS 10 and is currently available in its beta version. There are apps with similar capabilities available on Play Store, including a popular app Truecaller.
Here is the Google Play link for the app
