No one was (probably) snooping on your calls, but now you can actually be sure of that
If you want your private communication to stay private, end-to-end encryption is what you’re looking for — the “end-to-end” bit means that even the company hosting the service can’t read your messages while they’re in transit. Popular messaging services like WhatsApp feature end-to-end encryption on messages, video calls, voice calls, and more recently, even backups. And more apps keep adding support for it, even including Google Messages not too long ago. If you’re a Google Fi user, you’ll be glad to know that Google wants to bring end-to-end encryption to your phone calls, too.
End-to-end encrypted phone calls are joining Fi’s ever-growing list of privacy features, joining spam call blocking and a built-in VPN, and come at no extra charge for the user. How do you know your calls are protected? You’ll see “Encrypted by Google Fi” on your dialer UI when you place an eligible call, and you’ll also hear a unique ringing tone before being connected. With end-to-end encryption, your calls are encrypted on one end and decrypted on the other end, so even if there’s a middleman snooping in on your calls, they won’t be able to make out a thing.
In order for encrypted calls to work properly, both the person calling and the person being called need to be on Google Fi and using Google’s Phone app, in a similar fashion to how Google Messages’ encryption needs both the sender and recipient using RCS on the app.
Google says that Android Fi users should be able to begin making E2EE calls within the next few weeks. There’s no word yet on when or if we could hope to see iOS support.
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