Google said on Thursday that it is beginning to roll out a quick Air Raid Alerts system for Android phones in Ukraine. The new feature is the latest update from the internet giant about its response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
What’s New?
“Unfortunately, millions of civilians in Ukraine are now relying on air strike warnings to get to safety. “We’ve started rolling out a quick Air Raid Alerts system for Android phones in Ukraine at the request, and with the help, of the government of Ukraine,” said Kent Walker, Google’s VP of global affairs, in a blog post announcing the development.
The rollout, according to Walker, is a supplement to Ukraine’s existing air raid alert systems and is based on alerts that the Ukrainian government already sends out.
Google’s vice president of engineering, Dave Burke, outlined the system in a series of tweets, saying it uses the company’s low latency alert mechanism, which it developed for seismic notifications.
Burke also mentioned that the system is starting to roll out today, and that it will eventually affect all Android phones in Ukraine.
What’s More?
Google claims that the functionality will work on phones running Android 5 or later that have Google Play Services, and that most users will not need to do anything to get it. It will be rolled out over the next few days and should reach the majority of devices in the country.
The device location setting must be “on” for the feature to work, and the phone must have internet access to update.
On Android 12 devices, users can switch the feature on or off under the Safety & Emergency or Location Services settings, and in the Location Services setting on older Android versions:
Settings > Safety & emergency > Ukraine air raid alerts (Android 12)
Location > Location Services > Ukraine air raid warning (Android 5-12)
Digging In More Details
Google also revealed in the same blog post that it will keep working to limit suggestions for a number of Russian state-funded media outlets across all of its platforms. In addition, the corporation is halting the majority of its commercial activities in Russia.
“Following our announcement last week that we’d paused Google ads in Russia, we’ve now paused the vast majority of our commercial activities in Russia, including all Russian-based advertisers’ ads on our properties and networks globally, new Cloud sign ups, most of our services’ payments functionality, and monetization features for YouTube viewers in Russia.”
Google claims that its free services in Russia, including as Search, Gmail, and YouTube, are still available. The business said it will keep an eye on the situation.
