What you need to know

• Google Messages is rolling out smart alerts to automatically blur explicit images before you even see them.
• The feature is opt-in—you’ll need to turn it on yourself. Once active, it flags potential nudes before they load and offers options for action.
• You can choose to view the image, block the sender, or check out why it was flagged.
• Teens have it turned on by default, but adults need to opt in.

Google Messages is kicking off the rollout of smart alerts for sensitive images. Basically, if it spots something that looks like nudity, it’ll blur it out automatically before the recipients even open it.

This privacy-first feature has been simmering behind the scenes for quite some time. Google first gave us a preview of it last year, aiming for a February launch. Fast forward to now, and it’s finally starting to show up, but only in the beta version of Google Messages and just for a small group of users, per 9to5Google.

The Sensitive Content Warning is opt-in, so you’ll need to turn it on yourself. Once it’s active, it acts like a little checkpoint that flags potential nudes before they load and gives you a heads-up, plus some helpful info and options.

‘You sure about that?’ warnings

When you get this warning, you’ve got three choices: go ahead and view the image, block the sender, or check out why it was flagged in the first place. If you do choose to view it, you’ll also get the option to blur it again later, which is handy if someone else grabs your phone for a brief moment.

If you’re about to send a risky picture yourself, it’ll also drop a quick warning to let you know what you’re getting into.

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Sensitive Content Warnings work a bit differently depending on your age. While adults have to turn it on themselves, for teens, it’s switched on by default. If it’s a supervised account, like one managed by a parent through Google’s Family Link, you can’t turn it off at all. But if you’re a teen (13–17) with an unsupervised account, you can go into your settings and switch it off manually if you want.

Your device, your privacy

A key thing to highlight is that everything happens right on your device. Thanks to Android’s SafetyCore, the app handles all the scanning and results locally, with zero data being sent to Google’s servers.

Since all the scanning happens on your device, Google makes it clear that it is not seeing your photos or sending anything out. Plus, it doesn’t mess with RCS’s end-to-end encryption, so your messages stay fully locked down.

That said, this feature only covers still images (videos are not included) and only activates when a supported app, like Messages, makes the request.

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

No images are sent to Google’s servers.

The GSMA has announced that the latest specifications for RCS include support for end-to-end encryption using the MLS (message layer security) protocol.

This is great news for a sizeable chunk of users in North America, where carrier-based messaging like SMS or RCS is commonly used, and even in places where few people use it. Knowing that the messages are encrypted is important.

Note that nothing is in place just yet, but the capability is there for Google and Apple to implement. In separate statements to the Verge, both companies have stressed that they plan to implement the changes in the near future.

This is important, probably more important than we realize. After RCS was implemented for the iPhone without any sort of encryption layer, the governments of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand issued a joint bulletin warning us not to use it and send messages using an encrypted service like WhatsApp instead. those sorts of statements don’t come lightly.

Once these changes are properly implemented by Apple and Google, we can return to one app without worry if that’s what we like. Or maybe the universal appeal of something like WhatsApp will have won us over. Either way, both companies will stay hard at work, telling you why their service is superior and why the other is sub-par.

That’s because this was never about encryption, or even RCS, for Apple and Google. It was about locking you in with their platform.

We don’t need email evidence discovered at a trial to know this, but we have it, and it pretty much says that Apple (in this case) will do whatever it takes to use iMessage to keep people from buying an Android. Google will do the same; its messaging service doesn’t offer anything you couldn’t find on an iPhone, but there are plenty of other software services Google offers to try and convince you to stay.

Staying is important for both companies. Apple is a business that makes money from selling you goods and services. What it offers is so well-regarded that it can charge too much, and people are still willing to buy it. You get what you pay for and all that.

Google doesn’t charge for Android, but Android is a pathway to your eyeballs. Google services on an Android phone are a big part of Google’s core business model, and the more people they can garner, the more money they stand to make.

For both companies, numbers are important to the bottom line.

The real question is, what will Apple and Google bake into their respective messaging apps to fan the flames now that encryption isn’t the issue? This could mean some awesome new features that integrate messaging with other apps and services, or it could mean something nobody seems to appreciate, like a new set of stickers.

Tight integration with a service like YouTube could make for an interesting messages app as long as it’s done well — and you’re able to opt out. Messages could be a reimagined Google Plus that people actually want to use.

Apple, too, can find new ways to integrate its new AI services with iMessage, and iOS users will flock to try it. If it works well, they’ll keep using it.

One thing is certain: neither company is going to give up on trying to tell you why you want and need to use its stuff or how the other is behind the times.