Keep your calls private

Call Screen privacy tour

You can use Call Screen to find out who's calling and why, and to help avoid spam calls. Your phone calls are personal, and that’s why Call Screen uses new, on-device technology to keep your calls private. This way, screening works fast and keeps the conversation between you and the person who's calling. Learn how to screen your calls.

How Call Screen works

Screen calls automatically

You can set up Call Screen to automatically screen certain types of callers. Your Google Assistant asks callers why they’re calling. When you set up automatic call screening:

Calls from your contacts list aren't screened.
Call Screen detects spam based on what a caller says, or if matched in Google’s database of known spammers and robocallers. A detected spam call is declined without alerting you.
For calls that Call Screen doesn't detect as spam, your phone will ring and you’ll see how the caller responds. Then you can pick up or decline the call.
After the call, you can read the transcript and listen to the call audio in the “Recents” tab. If you don’t want audio from the call screening phase recorded, in “Spam and Call Screen” settings, turn off Save Call Screen audio.

Learn how to set up automatic call screening.

Tip: To protect your privacy, transcripts and recordings are stored only on your phone.

Screen calls manually

If you tap Screen call, the caller is asked why they're calling, and is told you'll get a copy of the conversation. You can get a real-time transcript of what the caller is asked and how they respond. If you pick up the call, screening and transcription end immediately.

Learn how to screen your calls.

Learn how Call Screen protects your data

Learn how transcripts & recordings are stored on your phone

To protect your privacy, transcripts and recordings are stored only on your phone.

After a screened call with either Manual or Automatic Call Screen, you can choose to share your audio, transcript, and call details from the screening phase with Google. This information helps Google improve Call Screen and spam detection.

Important: We're not processing call data outside of the screening phase (when a user joins the call).

Share data with Google to improve Call Screen

You can listen to the audio recording and review the transcript before you decide whether to share your call data with Google.

To share your data without any identifiers linked to you, on the last screen of the data sharing flow, change your email address to “Google user.”

Important: If you submit data without identifiers by changing your email address to the “Google user,” you can’t revoke access or delete audio recordings and transcripts you voluntarily shared since all user identifiers are removed.

Humans may review caller data to help improve machine learning and spam detection in Call Screen.

We do:

Store your Call Screen data on Google servers for up to 2 years.
Store Call Screen data with identifiers as the default, for the purpose of allowing deletion.

We don’t:

Process call data outside of the screening phase (when a user joins the call).

You can delete any recordings you share with Google at any time. Go to MyActivity and under “Call Screenshared audio,” tap Delete.

Tip: If you don't finish the process to volunteer your Call Screen details or click “No thanks” or “Cancel” at any point in that flow, the recording will be deleted from the device immediately.

If you use Call Screen and choose to share your Call Screen data with Google, you allow Google to access:

A recording and transcript of the call screening phase of the call (only before a user joins the call)
System logs, like diagnostic data
The business’s phone number, for calls from businesses, schools, or other organizations only
Greeting and disclosures played on the call
A spam verdict from Google for this business’s phone number
The timestamps of the general Call Screen events, such as start and end of call screening, rounded to the nearest hour

Call info doesn't get shared

The Google Assistant helps to screen calls, but call audio and transcripts don't get saved to your Google Account, your Google Assistant Activity page, or Web & App Activity.

You're in control

You can screen calls automatically:

In English
In the United States
On all Pixel phones with Android 10 and up

Turn off automatic call screening

You can turn off automatic call screening completely, for example, if you don’t want to miss an important call from someone not in your contacts. To turn off automatic call screening in the Phone app:

Tap More Settings Spam and Call Screen or Call Screen.
Tap Call Screen.
In “Unknown Call Settings,” turn the Ring phone off or on.
Turn off Automatically screen call.

Screen incoming calls manually

To manually screen an incoming call, tap Screen call.
Then choose to:
- Pick up the call
- Ask for more info
- Hang up
- Report the call as spam
  - Reported spam numbers are sent to Google