Google’s Identity Check for Android keeps phone thieves out of your digital accounts

Google is officially launching a new Android security feature for Pixel devices with Android 15 to prevent phone thieves from accessing your digital accounts. The feature, called Identity Check, requires biometric authentication to access some account and device settings when you’re not at a trusted location (such as your home or your workplace).

“A stolen device in the wrong hands can expose sensitive data, leaving you vulnerable to identity theft, financial fraud and privacy breaches,” Google says in its blog post about the launch. Apple introduced a similar feature to Identity Check, called Stolen Device Protection, following reports of thieves watching people input their iPhone passcodes, stealing the phones, and using the passcodes to access private information and lock users out of their Apple accounts.

Settings protected by Android’s Identity Check include changing your device’s PIN, disabling theft protection, turning off Find My Device, factory reseting your device, and changing biometrics, according to a support document.

Identity Check initially launched in beta late last year as part of the December Pixel Drop. The feature is also coming to Samsung Galaxy devices that can get One UI 7 “in the coming weeks” and to devices from other manufacturers “later this year,” Google says.