If you use Android, protecting your device in the event it is lost or stolen will soon be easier and more comforting than ever. In an imminent Android 16 quarterly platform drop, Google is prepping to make your smartwatch be a proximity key for its Identity Check feature, removing the friction from constant biometric nagging without doing that whole watering down the security thing.
What Identity Check Does Today
Identity Check is meant to prevent thieves from carrying out sensitive actions on a stolen phone. When your device is not in a trusted place — home or work, say — Android as a security precaution requires biometrics for high-value activities: seeing your passwords in Google Password Manager, altering account settings or unlocking apps that contain gate important data. And it’s all fairly simple: even if someone over your shoulder shoulder-surfs your PIN, they shouldn’t be able to look over your digital shoulder and start combing through your accounts.
The flip side is convenience. Face and fingerprint unlock work quickly, but aren’t always an option, either because of sweaty workouts, using winter gloves, or when wearing a face mask. It’s one of those pain points that Google is subtly and ingeniously addressing.
How smartwatch proximity alters the rhythm
Some new code found in the latest Android 16 QPR2 Beta 1 shows that with Identity Check it will have the ability to know when an appropriate smartwatch is near and connected. In that case, Android will allow you to authorize sensitive interactions with biometrics, or else with your screen lock (PIN, pattern or password), even in untrusted environments.
It’s a pragmatic risk decision. Most phone thefts are of the opportunistic variety, and it’s unlikely that someone who is grabbing ahold of your handset would also seize the watch currently on your wrist. Closeness to your watch is a strong indication that you’re the one still using the phone, not an attacker. For users, that means few moments of “pull off the glove, try the fingerprint again” while maintaining the extra protection that Identity Check brings to public spaces.
Google has already tested out a version of this in “Watch Unlock,” which makes a nearby Wear OS device unlock your phone; while Mobvoi itself has tried a similar feature in the past. The Identity Check integration, meanwhile, kicks things up a notch by making that same level of convenience available to any app or action that’s protected by Android’s sensitive-operation rules.
More apps covered, and a tighter default
There’s another influential change included with this update. Android 16 QP R2 widens Identity Check’s net and will make it extend to any app that connects the system BiometricPrompt API. If you’re out in the world and nowhere near a trusted place and don’t have a watch around, Android will revoke the fallback to screen lock for those prompts, making you scan a fingerprint or your face instead.
That’s a significant tightening of the threat model. BiometricPrompt is what a lot of high-value apps — think banking, password vaults, crypto wallets, workplace tools — rely on. A thief who knows your PIN will not be able ride that fallback to unlock a secured app.’ But when you’re in range of your paired watch, the fallback kicks in, and you get the thing back. Security when you want it, speed only when it’s safe.
The watches, and why they could matter
Early strings indicate that this ability may end up being restricted to new smartwatch models as well, with evidence pointing to Pixel Watch 3 and beyond. One good reason: Pixel Watch 3 has ultra-wideband (UWB) which lets you do accurate, theft-proof” proximity checks. Older watches use Bluetooth range instead, which is more spoofable and less of an indicator of “is it really on your wrist and pretty close?” decisions.
Google has not publicly described the technical specifications needed, but that direction is consistent with larger industry trends. It’s used more and more for digital car keys and secure device unlock, since it’s capable of measuring distance and fending off relay attacks better than classic Bluetooth. Then if Identity Check utilized that, the watch cutoff makes sense from a security model perspective.
Security impact: Convenience without compromise
Consumer protection groups like the FTC often recommend hiding sensitive information behind biometrics and steering away from easily guessable PINs. The new Identity Check basically just formalizes that advice by defaulting to biometrics in high-risk environments and providing a safe escape hatch when your watch proves that you’re physically there.
In practice, that should curb the temptation to weaken strong protections after simply being locked out of a frustrating moment at the gym or on the train. If anything, quite a few more people may flick the switch and turn Identity Check (once the smartwatch assist lands) on. That’s a net win: tougher defaults for everyone, fewer lockouts for the people who are actually lugging the phone around.
What to watch next
The feature is currently buried in Android 16 QPR2 beta code, which suggests it could arrive in an upcoming quarterly platform update.
But there should also be some blank space in Settings under Security & privacy, in advance, to tell users what isfait to Number Check with a paired watch and how to quickly set it up. If gloves, masks, or multiple biometric misreads are part of your daily routine, this is the type of small upgrade that can make security feel invisible — exactly where it should be.