Google may soon loosen one of Android's strongest security features

Google introduced Advanced Protection with Android 16 as a way for users to enable some of the strongest security and privacy protections on their devices. The feature is designed to protect against everything from harmful apps and online attacks to unauthorized access and other security risks.

However, Advanced Protection has taken an all-or-nothing approach until now. Once you enable the feature, most of its protections are automatically switched on, with no way to enable or disable them individually. The only exception is Intrusion Logging, which Google currently lists as an optional protection. That could be about to change.

While diggin through Google Play Services version 26.36.30, we found that Google is working on making several of Advanced Protection’s features optional.

The changes we found suggest Google may be getting ready to add an “Expert features” section to the Advanced Protection settings page.

It looks like Intrusion Detection, USB Protection, and Unsecured Wi-Fi Networks will be classified as “Expert features,”” rather than making them mandatory parts of Advanced Protection.

The strings we found in Google Play Services explicitly refer to an “expert mode,” saying, “Expert features offer a higher level of protection, which may come with some additional restrictions.”

Together, these strings suggest that Google might want users to opt into these additional restrictions rather than automatically applying them whenever Advanced Protection mode is enabled.

What does it mean for you?

USB Protection is currently available on Pixel 6 and newer devices. When enabled, it prevents new USB connections from being established while the phone’s screen is locked, helping protect the device from unauthorized access through a physical USB connection.

There can be a downside to this feature, though. In some cases, fast charging may not begin until the screen is unlocked, even though normal charging continues to work.

Moving USB Protection into the new Expert features section will allow users who don’t want that restriction to leave it turned off while still keeping the rest of the Advanced Protection feature suite switched on.

Google could also be moving its protection against unsecured Wi-Fi networks into the Expert features category.

When Google announced Advanced Protection for mobile devices in 2025, it said the feature would disable automatic reconnection to Wi-Fi networks known to be insecure, including open, WEP, or OWE networks.

Interestingly, Google no longer mentions this particular protection on its current Advanced Protection support page, but the code strings we found indicate that the functionality is still being accounted for in the new Expert features system.

The change means users who rely on automatically reconnecting to certain open or otherwise unsecured networks could potentially choose not to enable this additional restriction.