Google working on Find My Device feature to delete digital car keys

Android 12 will bring support for digital car keys, and with that losing your phone will become much worse. In an effort to make losing your phone (and thus wallet and soon car keys) suck slightly less, Google’s working on an update to Find My Device that will let users delete or suspend digital car keys on missing devices.

Spotted by 9to5Google, the feature is still a work-in-progress. 9to5 uncovered it in an APK teardown, which involves taking the APK file used to install Android apps and breaking it open to scour the code for changes.

As with all APK teardowns, it’s important to keep in mind that code can be misinterpreted and predictions can always be wrong. Plus, development on a feature could get canned before it launches. All that is to say take APK teardowns with a grain of salt and don’t get too hyped for a feature based on speculation inferred from code.

Anyway, version 2.4.042 of Find My Device includes a few lines of code detailing messages that appear on a phone’s lock screen. The first says “Your car keys will be deleted,” and the second says “Your car keys will be suspended.”

9to5 believes these notices will appear before users suspend or delete digital car keys from a device. Further, it’s unclear what exactly suspending a car key does — perhaps it’ll prevent it from working until users unlock the device again. Delete, however, is fairly clear.

It’s also not entirely clear how the delete/suspend functions will be implemented in Find My Device. It could be part of the overall device lock and wipe commands, or something else entirely.

Regardless, it should add a bit of comfort for anyone worried about losing their phone and, by extension, their car keys. Having a way to remotely suspend or delete car keys from a missing device will be a welcome feature for anyone who plans to use their phone to unlock their car in the future.

Source: 9to5Google