How to stop Google Android's SafetyCore feature from scanning your photos

A new Google app automatically installed on Androids has users outraged about the invasion of privacy, but don't worry, it can be uninstalled.

ZDNET, which first picked up on the chatter online, reports that the app SafetyCore, designed to protect sensitive content on users' phones, also scans their entire photo gallery. The tool was introduced in October as part of its latest system update and has been gradually rolling out to users, which is why they have begun to notice it now. 

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The feature in question on the app is called Sensitive Content Warnings for Google Messages. It's an "optional feature that blurs images that may contain nudity before viewing, and then prompts with a 'speed bump' that contains help-finding resources and options, including to view the content," according to a description in the Google Security blog.

"When the feature is enabled, and an image that may contain nudity is about to be sent or forwarded, it also provides a speed bump to remind users of the risks of sending nude imagery and preventing accidental shares."

However, for the feature to scan for nudes, it must access the nudes along with the rest of your photos. Google stressed that the scanning only happens on-device, and message contents are end-to-end encrypted. "Sensitive Content Warnings doesn’t allow Google access to the contents of your images, nor does Google know that nudity may have been detected," the description added.

Despite assurances that Sensitive Content Warnings is safe and private, users remain skeptical since Google installed the SafetyCore app without their knowledge, and it runs silently in the background without explicit user consent, so users wouldn't even know that they need to disable or uninstall anything. As one Redditor said, "Silently installed itself in the background and scans all your data. If you take the name Google out of the equation, this is textbook malware behavior." And the reviews on the Google Play store are similarly scathing.

How to uninstall SafetyCore

Don't worry, you can uninstall SafetyCore. Here's how:

• Go to Settings > Apps

• Select "See all apps" and then select "Show system apps" under the three dot menu

• Scroll to find SafetyCore

• When you find the app, tap Uninstall. As ZDNET notes, this option may be grayed out, in which case you can only disable it.