Google Assistant lock screen access coming to more Android devices
When Google launched the Nexus series of Android phones, the idea was to offer up a stock, vanilla Android experience for users who might be sick of the heavily modified UIs found on other Android phones. That approach has changed somewhat with the Pixel phones where Google started introducing exclusive Android features.
One feature was the ability to access Google Assistant from the lock screen which comes in handy if your hands are full. The good news for non-Pixel owners is that it looks like Google will be bringing the feature onto more Android phones. What this means is that soon you will be able to access Google Assistant features like restaurant recommendations, calendar appointments, traffic updates, and so on.
Now we know that some of you might be thinking that this sounds a bit like a security nightmare. Imagine people just randomly launching Google Assistant to turn on your phone and pull up otherwise-private data. We should point out that the feature is opt-in, meaning that by default it has been disabled and users will need to turn it on manually.
Also, it has been setup to only recognize your voice, so unless someone else can do a perfect impression/imitation of the way you talk, you should be somewhat safe. We suppose this isn’t necessarily a must-have feature so if you really are worried about security and privacy, you can choose to leave it as it is. Google has yet to mention when the feature will be going live and which phones it might be launched on first.
Source: TechCrunch