I installed NetGuard about a month ago and blocked all internet to apps, unless they're on a whitelist. No notifications from this particular system app (that can't be disabled) until recently when it started making internet connection requests to google servers. Does anyone know when this became a thing?
Edit 2: I bought my Pixel 6 phone outright, directly from Google's Australian store. I have no creditors.
Were the courts not enough control for creditors? Since when are they allowed to lock you out of your purchased property without a court order?
I don't even live in the US, so what the actual fuck?
Edit 1: You can check it's installed (~~stock~~ Pixel 6 android 14) Settings > Apps > All Apps > three dot menu, Show system > search "DeviceLockController".
I highly recommend getting NetGuard, you can enable pro features via their website if you have the APK for as low as 0.10€, but donate more, because it's amazing. You can also purchase via Google Play store.
So, that looks like this is less insane than it sounded... This is for if you buy your phone on a payment plan? Not for creditors more generally to have a option to repossess/dispossess your phone?
This is what small claims court is for. To me there is no excuse for this.
Yeah, this is likely something that's configured on an OS level to talk to some server when being sold.
However, note that SIM cards can have a flag that might enable this app (given how much power sim cards have over phones)
Note: no source, just assumptions
Edit: second note: this app isn't present on my EU OnePlus Nord.
Usually a financed devicd is financed through the carrier, and therefore a carrier branded device, and therefore locked to the carrier (yes they have the unlock option but compatibility tends to be far more limited than on the manufacturer unlocked version of the model)
If you look at the bottom it says once the device is paid off they can no longer access/change settings
Assuming there are no additional backdoors...
Coz we all trust in that...
That is both Google's official version and what it looks like poking at it.
I haven't dug in the code, so I don't know if this is theoretically possible for a shady carrier to enable after the fact. But it very much looks like a dormant feature nobody uses.
I guess I could see that making sense in poorer countries where carriers might have issues of people signing up for phone plans and never paying. A carrier locked flip phone was pretty useless, but nowadays cutting your phone/data off is more of an inconvenience than a dealbreaker, you've still got WiFi and a nice phone.