Google is making a major change by introducing a new Play Store policy. This policy will affect all those who use third-party call recording apps on Android since these will be killed, starting next month. This change is part of Google’s constant endeavor to stop the practice of call recording for which it has taken several steps in the past. Here are the details to know.
Call Recording Apps Might Soon Perish!
Google has announced a slew of new Play Store policies and one of those suggests that its Accessibility tool, which is being used by many developers to provide users with call recording apps, can’t be used by these developers anymore. This means that the third-party call recording apps will cease to exist for Android users. This change will come into effect, starting May 11.
Google’s support page states, “The Accessibility API is not designed and cannot be requested for remote call audio recording.” It was initially spotted by a Reddit user.
For those who don’t know, the Accessibility API was a way for developers to provide call recording services to people with Android 10 and above when Google blocked this functionality by default. Google started this by blocking the official call recording API with Android 6.0. Although, you should know that Google’s Pixel phones and a few OEMs like Xiaomi and Oppo do provide in-built call recording.
And people using any of the phones from these companies should take a sigh of relief as this new policy change won’t affect Android devices that come with in-built call recording functionality. Google has clarified this in a video webinar by stating, “Remote in this context refers to call audio recording where the person on the other end is unaware of the recording is taking place.“
The reason behind this total blockage of call recording apps is for the privacy and safety of the users, although, we don’t know if this strict policy is really a good idea, given that an inbuilt call recording feature is still very much there.
It remains to be seen how the developers of third-party call recording apps handle this news and what comes as an alternative option for people who rely on these apps. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Google’s decision is rather harsh? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
