Google is disabling message receiving on older Pixel phones amid audio leak

Google is disabling some phone app features on older Pixel devices after discovering a bug that led to audio being unintentionally leaked to callers. The problem has been specifically linked to Take a message The feature released last year, which automatically answers and records voicemail messages when you miss a call, has been reported by a few Pixel 4 and 5 owners that their phones Microphones are activated When callers were leaving messages.

“We have investigated this issue, which we have confirmed affects a very small subset of Pixel 4 and Pixel 5 devices under specific, very rare circumstances,” Google Community Manager Sri Tejaswini said on the support page. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are disabling message receiving features and next-generation call screen features on these devices.”

One Reddit user People who encountered the glitch said that callers did not hear the usual voicemail greeting, and that they “could hear my voices/room voices as they left a message.” A user describes how the microphone privacy indicator in the top-right corner of his phone’s screen turned on after missing a call and activating Receive a Message. “It was as if I had picked up the phone, except I had done nothing. It started recording me and sending audio to the caller passively.”

We asked Google whether these features will be permanently removed from the Pixel 4 and Pixel 5 phones, or whether they will be restored in the future. For now, Tejaswini says affected Pixel owners “will still be able to use manual and automatic call screening or your carrier’s voicemail instead.”