Google's new app will help warn you about nude images in Messages

With how important the internet has become in our daily lives, it’s counterproductive to keep minors completely off of it. Instead, it’s recommended that parents thoughtfully guide their children’s online activity. Android parental control tools help with that by letting parents restrict certain apps and content, but it’s unlikely that most parents will block their kids from taking pictures or sending text messages. Unfortunately, this leaves minors open to receiving or sending nude images over text, which they may not fully understand the consequences of at the time. Thankfully, Sensitive Content Warnings will alert them of these dangers, and in preparation for its launch, Google is rolling out the app that will power the feature.

During Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Google announced a slew of new security features in the Google Messages app. One of the new features the company announced is called Sensitive Content Warnings. This is designed to give you more control over seeing and sending nude images. When enabled, it blurs images that might contain nudity before you view them and then prompts you with what Google calls a “speed bump” containing “help-finding resources and options, including to view the content.” The feature also kicks in and shows a so-called “speed bump” when you try to send or forward an image that might contain nudity.

Google didn’t share images of what Sensitive Content Warnings look like in the Google Messages app, possibly because it was still working on finalizing the UI. The company said that the feature will roll out to devices running Android 9 or later in the coming months, though, so it could land at any time now. Google said that when the feature does roll out, it’ll be entirely optional for adults but opt-out for users who are under the age of 18. While it did mention that the Sensitive Content Warnings check runs entirely on-device, it didn’t mention that it will actually be powered by an entirely separate app and not Google Messages itself.

Over the past 24 hours, several users have reported seeing the Android System SafetyCore app on Google Play. The app’s description merely says that it’s a “system service that provides safety features for Android devices.”

As spotted by Artem Russakovski on X, though, Google has published a page that has a bit more information about the app. This page doesn’t go into much detail, but it at least confirms that Android System SafetyCore will power the upcoming Sensitive Content Warnings feature in Messages. It also confirms our report from earlier today about how the Android System Key Verifier app will power the contact verifying feature in the Messages app.

The page describes Android System SafetyCore more broadly as an “Android system component that provides privacy-preserving on-device user protection infrastructure for apps,” so it sounds like it’ll handle more than just the Sensitive Content Warnings feature. Over on the “Google System Release Notes” page, Google added a line that implies Android System SafetyCore will also be available on televisions. We haven’t seen any reports of it rolling out on Google TV yet, nor do we know what features it will power on the platform, though.

In any case, it’s nice to see Google delivering some new safety features in its Messages app. Hopefully the company publishes documentation on how Android System SafetyCore works so other messaging apps can implement their own version of Sensitive Content Warnings. Google Messages is popular, but there are certainly other messaging platforms that could benefit from this tool.