Google will make all the android application developers confirm your identity starting next year

Android open nature Set it except iPhone, because the time of smartphone with the touch screen began for almost two decades. A little bit, Google traded in any of that openness for safety, and his next security initiative could bring the greatest concessions on behalf of blocking bad applications.

Google announced to plan to start verifying the identity of all Android application developers, not just those publishing in Play Store. Google intends Check the identity of the developer no matter where they offer their contentand applications without verification will not work on most Android devices in the coming years.

Google used a very small playground storage (or Android Market, if you go far enough), but it took long to improve the reputation of the platform as you are less secure from the Apple App Store. Many years ago, you can publish real exploits in the official store to get root access to phones, but there are now multiple reviews and mechanisms for detection to reduce the prevalence of malware and forbidden content. While Play Store It’s still not perfectGoogle Hard Applications Sideloaded outside its shop are 50 times more likely to contain malware.

This, we are taking place to believe, is an incentive for Google’s new program for developer verification. The company describes it like “Airport Steering ID”. Since all Google developers need applicable applications to confirm your identities in 2023. years, it has seen a prescribed decline in malware and fraud. Bad actors in Google Play with the use of anonymity to distribute malicious applications, so that it is a reason to confirm the application programmer outside Google Play can also improve security.

However, the adoption that happens outside its app store will require Google View the Apple Playbook page And bend his muscles in a way that many users and android developers can find intrusive. Google plans to create an Android console for developers, which DEV will contain if they plan to distribute applications outside the Play. After verifying their identities, developers will need to register the package name and signing the key to their applications. However, Google will not check the contents or functionality of applications.

Google says that only applications with verified identities will be installed on certified android devices, which is practically every device based on Android – if it has Google services on it, it is a certified device. If you have Android, which is not Google Build Android, None of It Applies. However, it is a mischievous small part of Android ecosystem outside China.

Google plans to start testing this system with an early access in October this year. In March 2026. All developers will have access to a new console to verify. In September 2026. Google plans to launch this feature in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. The next step is still foggy, but Google targets 2027. To expand the verification requirements around the world.

Seismic shift

This plan comes on a large crossroad for Android. The case of Google Play Antitrustov that brought epic games, can finally force changes to Google Play in the coming months. Google He lost appeal Judgments before the judgment a few weeks ago, and while plans to appeal the President of the Supreme Court of the United States, the company will have to start changing its application distribution scheme, prohibitions further legal maneuvering.

Among other things, the Court ordered Google must distribute third-party app stores and allow the Play Store content to be re-set in other warehouses. Giving people more ways to get applications can increase the choice, which wanted EPIC and other developers. However, third-party sources will not have a deep system integration of the PLAY store, which means that users will just stop these applications without Google’s safety layers.

It’s hard to say how truly the security problem is. On the one hand, it makes sense Google would deal, most major defines of the infection android devices spread through third-party applications. However, the implementation of the installation whitet over almost all Android devices is a heavy hand. This requires that everyone makes Android applications to meet Google’s requirements before anyone will be able to install their applications, which could help Google Keep the Application Control to open on the application market. Although the requirements can be minimal currently, there is no guarantee that it will remain.

The The documentation is currently available It does not explain what will happen if you try to install an application not verified, nor will phones be checked on the verification status. It will probably distribute this white list in the game in the game as a date approach. We reached for details on that front and we will report if we hear anything.

This story originally appeared Ars Technica.