The new anti-theft system on Android interprets everyday motions as theft.
Google's efforts to stop or combat mobile phone theft are among the most recent additions to the Android operating system that have received high appreciation from the user base.
For instance, Android 15 introduced the theft detection lock feature, which was a pretty cool feature that basically locks your device if it detects that it has been stolen.
But according to recent posts on websites like Reddit, Google seems to have greatly boosted the sensitivity of the theft detection lock, blocking devices that belong to users.
As you are aware, this feature determines whether the phone has been taken from the user's hand by force using artificial intelligence and additional metrics like the accelerometer.
Additionally, if someone steals the device, they typically run away very fast, which the system also detects and blocks.
However, as numerous users have recently noted, a large number of regular users are experiencing their phones being blocked.
For instance, while seated on a bus, the phone of one impacted user was blocked.
While crossing the street, someone else's phone was blocked.
These recent false alarms could be explained by the fact that this anti-theft lock mainly uses the phone's accelerometer to detect abrupt movements and direction changes.