You won’t be able to record calls on Android phones anymore

An update to the Google Play Store developer policy will make it harder to record a phone call on your Android device from now on.

Google is forcing third-party call recording apps to stop offering their services in order to protect privacy.

It is also trying to reduce the potential misuse of the accessibility API (application programming interface), used by most call recording apps to spread malware on devices – something Android has historically suffered from.

‘The Accessibility API is not designed and cannot be requested for remote call audio recording,’ confirmed the tech giant.

In response to the news, Truecaller, the popular caller identification app, said it would stop offering its call recording feature.

Truecaller said that it had introduced call recording for all Android smartphones based on overwhelming consumer requests.

‘Call Recording on Truecaller was free for everyone, permission-based and required users to enable the feature using the Google Accessibility API,’ said Truecaller.

Accessibility APIs are really powerful and easy to misuse (and tons of malware do just that), so it makes sense that Google is strictly limiting what apps can use them. But there’s no alternative here, which sucks.https://t.co/qgwfFYlXvR

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) April 20, 2022

‘However, as per the updated Google Developer Program policies, we are unable to offer call recording any longer. This will not affect devices that have call recording built into the device natively,’ they added.

The change Google has made plugs the workaround using the accessibility API that developers were exploiting to record calls.

With no alternative to this API at the moment, unless your Android phone has a native call recording feature, you’re not going to be able to record your phone calls any more.

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