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Each single telephone, Android or in any other case, has an IMEI quantity. The IMEI quantity is a singular identifier that identifies a tool on a cell community, very similar to a private identification quantity. It’s typically a good suggestion to not reveal or broadcast your telephone’s IMEI quantity, simply to keep away from sharing it with malicious actors. Nonetheless, there are conditions the place simpler entry to a telephone’s IMEI quantity may need been helpful. The newest launch of the Private Security app, v2025.11.13.831777920, contains code that implies Google could quickly enable entry to your telephone’s IMEI quantity from the lock display screen.

At the moment, there is no such thing as a option to entry or test the IMEI numbers of your telephone from the lock display screen. It’s because IMEI numbers are typically handled as Personally Identifiable Info (PII), and there’s a risk that they might be misused by hackers and even regulation enforcement businesses in lots of circumstances.

Google’s Private Security app is an optionally available a part of the GMS and is pre-installed on loads of Android telephones. One of many key options of Private Security is that it permits your medical data and emergency contacts to be seen in your lock display screen, offering help whenever you want it most. This information will be accessed from the lock display screen by invoking the Pin enter display screen and tapping the Emergency button. Ordinarily, this opens up a dialpad display screen, as seen within the first screenshot under.

Code throughout the new app means that Google is including a System information choice to this display screen, which will be accessed by tapping the three-dot menu on the highest proper. It will then reveal the IMEI numbers of the telephone. We managed to activate this display screen, as seen within the second screenshot under:

Google may even show this textual content alongside the IMEI:

Again in February, a person submitted a function request to Android’s Concern Tracker to permit for IMEI entry from the lock display screen. The person’s rationale was that it might be helpful to permit regulation enforcement entry to the IMEI with out granting them entry to the remainder of the information saved on the gadget or needing them to wipe the telephone by means of a tough reset. This manner, regulation enforcement can nonetheless cross-check the IMEI to find out if it belongs to a stolen telephone, with out having access to or destroying the remainder of the information on the telephone.

Because the person famous:

Supporting the power to test gadget data with out the necessity to unlock it might have a excessive optimistic impression on the gadget proprietor’s privateness and safety, in addition to the safety of gadgets themselves. It might cut back the variety of unauthorized gadget seizures beneath the disguise of “checking if they’re stolen” when the person doesn’t comply with unlock the gadget for any motive, together with his/her personal privateness. It’s subsequently in alignment with the provisions of each the First and the Fifth Modification within the U.S., in addition to provisions prohibiting illegal searches and seizures of property in different jurisdictions.

Satirically, Google closed the function request as “Received’t Repair (Meant Habits).” The rationale given was that IMEI is a delicate PII, and malicious actors may report locked telephones as stolen. Whereas the 3GPP normal mandates exhibiting of IMEI, it doesn’t say it ought to be proven in unlocked state (sic).

As luck would have it, the Private Security app is shifting forward to point out the IMEI in a telephone’s locked state, contradicting Google’s earlier rationale.

At the moment, it doesn’t seem that the System information display screen is optionally available. It’s potential that Google may make this optionally available, simply because it did with Well being Data and Emergency Contacts. This manner, customers can have a selection in whether or not or not they wish to reveal their IMEI on the lock display screen. It’s a double-edged sword, in spite of everything. We’ll preserve you up to date when the function rolls out and/or we be taught extra.