Android 15 makes your smartphone harder to steal: Here’s how

iOS 17’s Stolen Device Protection feature on iPhones was a batch of rather small changes that significantly changed how burglars and pickpockets approach stealing your device. Some simple tweaks that put your phone’s most important settings behind a biometric security layer, and opening a stolen iPhone suddenly became harder than ever.

Now some similar features are coming to Android phones thanks to Android 15 update. These features will also soon be coming to select older Android versions. Here’s how they work and how you can enable them on a supported smartphone.

Android 15 Theft Protection features: How they work

Android 15’s new Theft Protection features work on two levels, and the first of the two features is the Theft Detection Lock feature.

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This feature uses sensors and algorithms to detect when a phone has been snatched and will automatically lock the device when the phone thinks a possible snatcher is running away.

Most smartphones are snatched when they are out of the pocket and being used. This also means these phones are unlocked and may offer most confidential data and credentials freely to the snatcher. The Theft Detection Lock feature prevents this by auto locking the phone, after which a snatcher cannot do much.

The other feature is Offline Device Lock, which locks your screen to help protect your data even when your device is “off the grid”.

Android Theft Protection features: How to enable

There are two ways to enable the Theft Protection features on your Android phone.

The first is by heading to the Settings app in Android 15 and navigating to Google/All Services and look for the Theft protection option. Here, you can toggle both the new protection options on and the features should be enabled.

In a newer update, Google is also introducing a second, easier way to enable the same. This is by heading to the Settings app in Android 15 and navigating to Security & Privacy/Device unlock/Theft protection and turning the toggles on in here.

There you go. Your phone is now a little more secure from thieves and snatchers!