Google will stop using third-party call recording apps on the Play Store beginning today to make sure they are up to date with its policy change to enhance the security and privacy of its users. Most of the call recording apps were still listed on the Play Store at the time of filing the article. Even if all the third-party call recording apps are unlisted from the Play Store, most Android users won't face much difficulty because the new policy won't affect built-in call recording apps. Most Android phones have a built-in call recording feature that can be turned on while answering the call or activated from the device setting.
Speaking to Business Today about Google's policy changes, Prabhu Ram, Head Industry Intelligence Group at CMR, said that the policy changes in the Google Play Store are intended to enhance user privacy and security. This policy change will only affect third-party apps on the Google Play Store that enable call recording. The top five major smartphone companies in India, including Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, Vivo and OPPO, as well as other majors, such as OnePlus, offer native call recording features on their phones. A grace period of 30 days was given to developers by Google on April, to comply with the new rules. The popular caller ID app Truecaller had introduced a call recording feature, but it doesn't offer it anymore after Google's policy change.
We had introduced call recording for all Android phones based on overwhelming consumer demand. The Google Accessibility API is used to enable users to enable the feature, and the free call recording on Truecaller is free for everyone. We are unable to offer call recording anymore, because of the updated Google Developer Program policies. A Truecaller spokeswoman said that this won't affect devices that have call recording built into the device natively.
Many Android original equipment manufacturers OEMs have call recorder features built into their Android phones. Most brands have their own user interface and even pre-install apps, from Samsung to OnePlus.
Samsung is another brand that has an automatic call recording feature built-in and can be enabled from the phone's settings. In the settings, you can set the call record and turn on the call record toggle. For long, Xiaomi had a built-in call recorder feature as part of its MiUI. This feature is a manual feature, unlike automatic call recording features. This feature is available on all Xiaomi Mi, Poco, and Redmi phones in India.
If you use a OnePlus phone, a call record option appears when answering a call.
A similar feature is built-in phones from Oppo, Vivo, Reale and Tecno. The feature requests for microphone, calls and storage access on most phones.
Unlike Apple's closed ecosystem where users can only download apps from the App Store, Android users always had the option to sideload apps using the APK files. Sideloading apps have always been a gateway for hackers to take over control of the Android phone, and has never been recommended. With Android 13 it is making it hard for sideloaded apps to gain access to accessibility services, according to industry reports. These are the same accessibility services that many of the app developers used to use for call recording apps.