Android P May Support Blocking Calls from Unknown, Private, and Pay Phone Numbers

[Megalith]

In what is welcome news for vanilla Android users affected by spam and other unwanted calls, XDA-Developers is reporting on a number of new commits that allude to automatic blocking of questionable numbers, which include any numbers not in a contact list. Samsung phones have had this feature for some time.

Currently, you are only able to block calls on a per-number basis. The numbers that you block must be added manually, which means you basically can only block calls from unwanted numbers after-the-fact. With these new settings, however, you can restrict who is allowed to call you so you won’t ever be bothered by unwanted phone calls.

 

[RealBeast]

Now this is actually a feature that would get me to buy a new phone, I get loads of junk calls.

 

[Krixon]

When I was debating which phone to get after my Note 5 crapped out, this feature alone made me stick with Samsung. I used to get between 5 and 10 spam calls a day before the feature, and now I might get one or two a week.

Glad to hear Android might be adopting it natively.

 

[TwiceOver]

What I want? Zero calls from anyone not in my contacts. None. I don't want the fucker to ring, light up, or alert me unless the person is on my call list.

I haven't found any app or phone that does this.

 

[risc]

What I want? Zero calls from anyone not in my contacts. None. I don't want the fucker to ring, light up, or alert me unless the person is on my call list.

I haven't found any app or phone that does this.

I want intelligent blocking on a network level to eliminate spam and fraud. The occasional call that doesn't originate from your contact list isn't necessarily abuse or illegitimate.

 

[brogers]

What I want? Zero calls from anyone not in my contacts. None. I don't want the fucker to ring, light up, or alert me unless the person is on my call list.

I haven't found any app or phone that does this.

Seriously! I have a hard time understanding why this hasn't been made available years ago. At most I would allow someone in my contacts to leave a message. If an interactive assistant made them jump through hoops to leave a message even better. The do not disturb on iOS is a joke and doesn't meet my needs.

 

[TwiceOver]

I want intelligent blocking on a network level to eliminate spam and fraud. The occasional call that doesn't originate from your contact list isn't necessarily abuse or illegitimate.

They are bad at it, especially locally spoofed numbers. *I* want that option for *my* phone. I'm not saying it is for everyone. Until this is possible, I also don't see any way to give a kid under 18 a phone.

 

[Spidey329]

Seriously! I have a hard time understanding why this hasn't been made available years ago. At most I would allow someone in my contacts to leave a message. If an interactive assistant made them jump through hoops to leave a message even better. The do not disturb on iOS is a joke and doesn't meet my needs.

Exactly, a captcha for non-contact list numbers.

At the very least, I'd like for Android to allow for blocking of numbers via wildcard. A lot of the spoofed spam numbers are just mutations of your own number, so 702-555-1234 dialed has a spoof caller as 702-555-1332 or something. The pattern isn't that hard to spot.

I actually got a call from a random guy last week that was returning a call from my number. His # was close enough to mine that it spoofed the caller into my number.

Google could probably do something like this via GoogleFi .. have it check your Google contact list before routing to the handset. If not in contact list, reroute to a captcha operator.

 

[risc]

They are bad at it, especially locally spoofed numbers. *I* want that option for *my* phone. I'm not saying it is for everyone. Until this is possible, I also don't see any way to give a kid under 18 a phone.

And I want you to have that option on your phone, however you wouldn't have to enable it if the networks did a good job of disconnecting/blocking fraud and spam callers.

 

[Tekara]

Good to see see old tech making a comeback:

. . . PalmOne Treo 650 since December of 2004
. . .
CallFilter: Utility

Just like BackupBuddy, CallFilter is another one of these products you simply can't afford to be without on your Treo. It lets you filter incoming calls based on phone number, name, category, blocked/no callerid, or company, send unwanted calls to voicemail immediately or after a few rings, pickup and hang up on caller, ignore caller, or automatically answer.

 

[Cmdrmonkey]

What I want? Zero calls from anyone not in my contacts. None. I don't want the fucker to ring, light up, or alert me unless the person is on my call list.

I haven't found any app or phone that does this.

The iPhone basically already does this. Turn on do not disturb and set it to only allow calls from contacts

 

[kandrey89]

This is dangerous since Police Officers and Highway patrol officers will call you back using an Unknown number, their numbers are blocked due to security reasons, and if you are in danger of someone following you or road raging or just reporting a drunk driver, the officers will call you to get a better location and help you.
I've had officers call me back over a dozen times, it's always Unknown.
911 dispatch centers though call you back using phone numbers that show up as real, with correct area code and such, however you can't call back the highway patrol dispatchers directly because they have blocks on unauthorized numbers and only mobile phones assigned to officers can call back to dispatch, this reduces distraction calls and unwanted calls dispatchers may receive while they are conducting radio traffic. Dispatchers deal with officers' traffic 95% of the time, 911 calls are processed by call takers that do not talk to the officers directly. Sometimes during certain hours and or high call volume, depending on dispatcher availability, they will pick up 911 calls and answer it themselves. Call takers record the info into the CAD (computer aided dispatch) system and the dispatchers read the new logs and act appropriately to dispatch units based on area of incident.

 

[TwiceOver]

The iPhone basically already does this. Turn on do not disturb and set it to only allow calls from contacts

Android also. Unfortunately the dnd settings do not let you break out notifications from calls by time. So I can't have block calls always and notifications only at night.

 

[theBrownLlama]

now i want a a background service to pick up the call, scan 3 seconds of it , and analyze whether to pass it through

that way you still can pick up calls from clients and the such, without barring all of it

call it e-Secretary of something.

 

[BloodyIron]

What if it's a call from a job offer? How do you handle that scenario? Chances are their number won't be in your contacts already.

 

[longblock454]

What if it's a call from a job offer? How do you handle that scenario? Chances are their number won't be in your contacts already.

You of course disable the feature while job searching.

 

[vegeta535]

This can't come soon enough. I got 6 unknown calls in a row last week. Each left a 3 min voice mail. They were all different. One was some angry dude screaming to stop calling him. Next two were some fake Asian dude accent saying hello and why you keep calling. Next two were just some radio station in the back ground. The two radio station one had something totally different different transcribe then what was on the voice mail. The last one was some chick talking dirty lol. I never experienced something like this. All one after another.

 

[SomeoneElse]

I've been using this feature for over a year now on my Pixel XL? I didn't realize this wasn't available to other phones I thought it was built in Andriod since 7+. Hmmm I guess I was wrong. I have a good number of spam callers blocked already.

 

[TwiceOver]

I've been using this feature for over a year now on my Pixel XL? I didn't realize this wasn't available to other phones I thought it was built in Andriod since 7+. Hmmm I guess I was wrong. I have a good number of spam callers blocked already.

Yeah, it's the Android Dialer which I think is exclusive to Google Phones. I had it on my 5x. I think this one takes it a step further though isolating just your contacts.