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Google’s Call Screen feature will fight robotic calls in more markets

Published: Oct 27, 2021, 4:50 AM

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Google’s Call Screen feature will fight robotic calls in more markets

Back in 2019, Google introduced a handy anti-spam and anti-scam feature called Call Screen. This feature uses the power of Google Assistant, and some additional magic to shut off spammers, telemarketers, or pretty much any unwanted person or robot calling you.

Call Screen was initially launched in Canada, Japan, and the US, and has been limited to these markets for the past two years, but now Google is expanding its availability. Last week, Google announced a slew of new features in the Phone app for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, and Call Screen, being one of them, is apparently rolling out to new countries in Europe.

“If you do get a call from an unknown number, not to worry – Call Screen helps you find out who they are and why they’re calling before you pick up. Call Screen helps users in the U.S., Canada and Japan screen 37 million calls each month, and today we’re expanding manual Call Screen to Pixel users in the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Italy and Spain. Our latest on-device speech models make the transcriptions more accurate than ever on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro thanks to Pixel’s new Google Tensor,” reads part of the official blog post.

What is Call Screen?

Call Screen uses the contacts stored on your phone to determine whether to screen a call. Furthermore, it can detect spam and robotic calls, as the feature compares the number that’s calling you against a huge spam database.

Call Screen can also transcribe and record calls, and also use Google Assistant to ask the caller for their name and the reason for calling. It’s worth noting that there are two separate options you can use - Automatic and Manual Call Screen.

The Automatic mode is only available in English and in the US, and if you’re in one of the aforementioned European countries, you need to manually activate the feature the moment you receive a call. The feature should be available on all Pixel phones.

How to set up automatic call screening

1. You need to have the latest version of the Phone app, so be sure to update it if possible.

2. Open the Phone app by tapping on the handset icon.

3. Tap More (the three vertical dots in the upper left corner), then Settings, and then select Spam and Call Screen.

4. Make sure See caller and spam ID features are turned on.

5. Select Call Screen.
6. Under “Unknown call settings,” tap the types of callers you’d like to screen.
7. To screen automatically, choose Automatically screen. Decline robocalls. Otherwise, choose from three options - Ring phone, Automatically screen. Decline robocalls, and Silently decline.
Optional: You can also save audio from screened calls, by turning on Save Call Screen audio. This option will record audio only from the caller.

How to manually screen calls

It’s pretty simple - when you receive a call, just tap the Screen call button.
The Google Assistant will start screening the call and ask who's calling and why. You'll get a real-time transcript of how the caller responds.
If the other side is brave enough to respond, you can shoot a suggested response toward them, pick up the call, or hang up. Here is the list of the predefined response options and what they mean:

Is it urgent?: “Do you need to get a hold of them urgently?”
Report as spam: “Please remove this number from your mailing and contact list. Thanks, and goodbye.”
I'll call you back: “They can’t talk right now, but they'll give you a call later. Thanks, and goodbye.”
I can't understand: "It's difficult to understand you at the moment. Could you repeat what you just said?”

Bear in mind that Call Screen is far from perfect, and sometimes it will fail to detect a robotic call or a scammer. Also, the transcription might not always be perfect, depending on the connection quality, and the accent of the calling party.

The latter should be much better on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, thanks to the speech recognition algorithms baked into the new Tensor chip.

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Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.