Google now lets you add friends as account recovery contacts

Google is announcing new privacy and recovery anti-spam tools across several Android-related products, including detecting suspicious links in messages, phone number sign-in, and recovery contacts.

Google is adding new ways to recover Google accounts without losing any information if you lose your device or if your account is compromised through a hack.

The company is adding a new feature called Recovery Contacts, which lets you add your trusted friends or family members as contacts to start the recovery process and verify your identity. When your account is locked due to losing your device or forgetting your password. This setting is located under the Security tab on your Google Accounts page.

When you get locked out, you can select a recovery contact as a backup method, and they will get a number that will be valid for 15 minutes, which you will have to verify to log in to your account again. You can add 10 recovery contacts to your account, and they will need to approve your request to add them as a single contact. Once you add a recovery contact, you won’t be able to use it again for seven days.

The company is also adding login using a mobile phone number as a recovery method, which is especially useful when a device is lost. The tool automatically identifies all accounts associated with a specific phone number. You can use the lock screen passcode or pattern from your previous device to verify your identity. This feature is gradually rolling out worldwide.

The company launched On-device protection for messages for Pixel devices To detect fraud and spam messages. Google is now detecting spam links in Google messages for all users. When you click on a suspicious message, the app will warn you and prevent you from visiting that page.

For the more technically inclined, the company is adding a key verification tool in Google Messages. This helps identify the other person and ensures that your messages are end-to-end encrypted and private. Users using Android 10 and later can scan your contact’s QR code to verify them.

Google is also introducing a new game called Be prepared to be scammed To educate users about different scam and scam use cases.