Your Android phone is about to get a serious security update
Privacy Sandbox is coming to Android
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Building on its plan to replace third-party cookies on the web,Googleis bringing its newPrivacy Sandboxstandards to mobile to improve user privacy onAndroid smartphones.
For those unfamiliar, the search giant’s Privacy Sandbox initiative consists of several parts including Google Topics and FLEDGE. WhileGoogle Topicssplits the web into different topics and divides users into groupings depending on their interests,FLEDGEis dedicated to facilitating remarketing or showing ads on websites based on a user’s previous browsing history.
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Back in February of this year, Google announced in ablog postthat Privacy Sandbox would also being coming to Android in addition to the web in order to better protect user data and privacy, saying:
“Our goal with the Privacy Sandbox on Android is to develop effective and privacy enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile. While we design, build and test these new solutions, we plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes.”
Privacy Sandbox on Android
To help developers prepare their apps and online services for the introduction of Privacy Sandbox on mobile, Google has now released the first developer preview forPrivacy Sandbox on Android.
The Privacy Sandbox Developer Preview provides additional platform APIs and services on top of theAndroid 13 Betaincluding an SDK, system images, an emulator and developer documentation. This will allow developers to do preliminary testing of these new technologies and evaluate how they might adopt them in their apps.
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Once the development environment is set up, developers can familiarize themselves with technical proposals on the SDK Runtime, Topics, Attribution Reporting and FLEDGE on Android as well as preview and run the included sample apps.
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As Google plans to test Privacy Sandbox on Android over the next two years, it could be some time before end users get to experience the new set of standards for themselves. In the meantime though, you can always grab aVPN, ananonymous browserand one of thebest privacy apps for Androidto further protect yourself against online tracking.
After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.
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