Your Pixel Now Alerts You in Real Time if a Call is a Scam: Here’s How It Works in Italy

Google's Fraud Protection for Phone is now active in Italy on compatible Pixel devices. The feature analyzes calls in real time and alerts the user with auditory, visual, and haptic signals if during the conversation patterns typical of phone scams emerge: requests for payment with gift cards, solicitations for sensitive data, unusual psychological pressure.

Who Can Use It and How to Activate It

In Italy, the feature is available on Pixel 9 and later (excluding Pixel 9a), while in the United States it is accessible starting from Pixel 6. Activation is not automatic: it must be enabled manually by the user through the path Phone App → Settings → Fraud Protection. Before use, Pixel 9 and later models must download the Gemini Nano model via Android AI Core, an operation that occurs automatically upon first activation. On models from Pixel 6 to Pixel 8 (and Pixel 9a), the function relies on Google's on-device machine learning models instead of Gemini Nano: it is therefore less effective compared to the corresponding feature on the new Pixels.

Contacts already saved in the address book are not subjected to the filter by default. An audio signal alerts at the beginning of each analyzed call, with a second alert after a few minutes. The feature can be globally deactivated from the settings or, for a single call, directly from the in-call menu.

Google Clarifies

Google emphasizes that not all scam calls can be detected and that scammers continuously update their techniques.

Privacy: Everything Stays on the Device

The aspect that Google emphasizes the most is privacy. Analysis occurs entirely on-device: no audio from the conversation, no transcription is saved on the phone or transmitted to the company's servers. Furthermore, the new feature may lead to higher energy consumption compared to normal use: Google does not explicitly mention this, but it is a technical consequence that is difficult to avoid with this type of continuous processing.

The Pixel Drop of March 2026 had officially announced the arrival of the feature outside the USA; the actual rollout in Italy began between February and April 2026. In addition to Italy, Fraud Protection is available on Pixel 9 and later in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom, although the expansion in individual markets has occurred gradually. Google plans to extend scam detection to messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, with analysis of SMS, MMS, and RCS content already in development.