Protection from Online Scams & Fraud - Google Safety Center
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Maps gives you privacy with Incognito mode and location history settings.
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Gemini blocks harmful content and provides easy access to your privacy settings.
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Overview
Safer by Design
Learn how we're Safer by Design
Privacy
Privacy Practices
Discover how we build products that protect your privacy.
Ads & Data
Learn about our advertising principles and your ad experience.
Security
Built-in Security
Learn how built-in security keeps your personal information safe.
Scams & Fraud
Explore how we protect you from online scams and fraud.
Security Tips
Discover tools and tips to help keep you safe online.
Authentication
Learn about safer ways to sign in to your online accounts.
Cybersecurity
See how we lead cybersecurity in our approach and societal impact.
AI
AI & Safety
Learn about how we are advancing AI safety with testing and standards.
Secure AI Framework
Learn about the core elements of our secure AI framework (SAIF).
Content
Content Safety
Learn about our protections against harmful and illegal content.
Product Protections
Learn more about Product Protections
Android
Android's ML-powered security guards against threats and protects privacy.
Gmail
Gmail blocks threats and keeps your messages encrypted.
Nest
Nest keeps your data private with built-in security and automatic updates.
Assistant
Assistant protects your privacy, and puts you in control of your data.
Google Fi Wireless
Google Fi Wireless protects your connection for calls, streaming, and browsing.
Photos
Photos keeps your memories safe with built-in security and privacy tools.
Chrome
Chrome guards against threats with safety checks and real-time detection.
Google One
Google One protects your expanded storage with industry-leading cloud security.
Pixel
Pixel keeps you safer both online and in the physical world.
Family Link
Family Link helps parents set digital boundaries for their families.
Google Pay
Google Pay protects your payments and keeps your personal information safe.
Search
Google Search encrypts your searches, protects your data, and blocks threats.
Google Health
Google Health protects your health and wellness data and provides easy-to-use privacy settings.
Maps
Maps gives you privacy with Incognito mode and location history settings.
YouTube
YouTube protects your data with privacy tools and personalized viewing controls.
Gemini
Gemini blocks harmful content and provides easy access to your privacy settings.
Meet
Meet makes video calls safer with encryption and smart meeting management tools.
Safety Settings
Learn more about Safety Settings
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Learn about ad controls and how to customize your ad experiences.
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Learn about security controls and how to add protection to your Google Account.
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Learn about parental controls and how to keep your family safer online.
Google Account
Safer by Design
Scams & Fraud
Built-in security keeps you safer from scams and fraud
According to the Global Anti-Scams Alliance, nearly one in four people worldwide have been affected by online scams and fraud. Bad actors are misusing technology to build scams around jobs, investments, travel, and more, relying on misleading content and malware to make their crimes more effective. Google is committed to helping you stay safer every day, with AI-powered security features built in at the product level.
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Safer with AI
Features
Approach
Partners
AI-powered scam detection
Google uses AI to identify fraudulent content at scale. Machine learning uncovers patterns that indicate potential scams, and LLMs can quickly recognize new trends that allow us to distinguish what is legitimate from what is harmful. These innovations make it possible to filter out threats and help keep you safer as you go about your life online, from opening emails and making purchases to browsing the web and storing photos.
Your daily defense against dangerous schemes
Discover the product features engineered to keep you and your personal information safer from scams, spam, malware, fraud, theft, and more.
Google Search
Keeping
Search
99%
spam-free
In Search, AI helps us detect and block hundreds of millions of scammy results every day. Our
Fighting Scams on Search
report showcases how the investments we’ve made in our AI-powered scam-detection systems — along with improvements to our classifiers — have enabled us to catch 20 times the number of scammy pages. These improvements help ensure that the results you get are legitimate, and protect you from harmful sites trying to steal your sensitive data. We also provide tools like
About this result
,
which lets you learn more about online sources before clicking into them.
Learn more
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Chrome
Enhanced
Safe
Browsing
Chrome’s Enhanced Protection mode of Safe Browsing is our highest level of protection from phishing, malware, and other scams you may encounter while browsing the web. It keeps consumers twice as safe compared with Standard Protection mode.
With its expanded use of AI, Enhanced Protection now deploys the Gemini Nano model to predict scamming sites at a scale not possible before, and can even identify previously unseen scams. We’ve started using this new, AI-powered approach to protect people from remote tech-support scams and will be expanding it to protect against additional types of scams.
Learn more
Google Maps
Blocking
fake
business
profiles
and
reviews
We’re constantly getting better at preventing and taking down deceptive content from bad actors. Last year, our AI-powered detection systems blocked or removed more than 12 million fake business profiles and over 240 million reviews that violated our policies. The vast majority of the misleading reviews were removed from Google Maps before they were ever seen by our users.
Learn more
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Android
Android
protects
you
from
spammers,
shady
sites,
and
theft
Android automatically filters out spam and phishing messages, and screens scam calls. Proactive protections warn you before you visit an identified dangerous site. All apps on your device are scanned daily for continued security. And theft protection keeps your data safe before, during, and after theft attempts.
Learn more
Pixel
Scam
Detection
in
messages
and
calls
Scams are commonly initiated through phone calls and text messages. These often appear harmless at first but can evolve into dangerous situations. Scam Detection uses powerful on-device AI to help detect conversational patterns commonly used by scammers, in real time. Get notified during calls and text messaging if the person on the other end is a potential scammer.
Learn more
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Check out our tips and tools for avoiding scams
Get up to speed with the information you need to protect yourself from all kinds of shady and scammy activity online. Knowing what to look for is one of the best lines of defense.
Go to Security Tips
Check out our tips and tools for avoiding scams
Get up to speed with the information you need to protect yourself from all kinds of shady and scammy activity online. Knowing what to look for is one of the best lines of defense.
Go to Security Tips
Our approach to
battling scams and fraud
In order to provide access to trustworthy information and content, we develop policies and protections that help us prevent, detect, and respond to harmful and illegal content. Learn more about our three-pillar approach in our Tackling Scams and Fraud Together whitepaper.
The Ads Transparency Center
Launched in 2023, this searchable tool lets users look up any advertiser on Google’s platforms to see basic company information and view all their current ads. It’s helpful for anyone who wants to research the companies behind ads, and also for distinguishing legitimate businesses from potential scammers. The Ads Transparency Center works alongside our advertiser verification programs to give users more control over and insight into who’s advertising to them.
Learn more
Providing context on Search
Our About this image feature helps users verify photos they find online by showing metadata about when and where the image appeared on the web. Available through “circle to search” on Android phones, the feature can reveal if an image was AI generated by detecting watermarks and other creator-added information. This tool is part of our effort to help people understand the source and history of the visual content they encounter in Search results.
Learn more
Disclosure and labeling on YouTube
YouTube requires creators to label videos that contain realistic AI-generated or significantly altered content. Most videos get a disclosure in the description, but content that covers more sensitive topics like health, news, or politics receives a more prominent warning directly on the video. YouTube also requires political advertisers to clearly disclose when their ads use AI-generated content, helping viewers understand what they’re watching while they seek to make informed decisions.
Learn more
Android’s always-on protections
Android’s top priority is the safety of its users. We use industry-leading security practices and work closely with developers and device implementers across the entire ecosystem to ensure users are protected as soon as they power on their device. Android incorporates multiple layers of protections across its mobile operating system to detect and prevent scams, such as Phone by Google, which screens for potential spam and scam calls.
Learn more
Anti-scam policies on Google Ads
Google Ads has developed — and regularly updates — a range of policies and safety features tailored to the ads ecosystem, such as its policy against public-figure impersonation or its limited ads serving. The latter requires advertisers to go through a “get to know you” period before earning the privilege of advertising in abuse-prone areas. These dedicated policies have been key to dramatically reducing the volume of scammy ads.
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Partnerships in tackling fraud
Tackling fraud and scams remains a complex and ongoing challenge that necessitates a cross-industry response and collaboration with stakeholder groups. Google is proud to participate and share our knowledge and expertise in these collective efforts toward strengthening technological solutions and protecting users.
Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA)
GASA is a global nonprofit coalition with a broad network of over 100 members and close relationships with law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Europol, and industry sectors such as banks and major tech companies. Google joined GASA in March 2024 as a Foundation Member.
Learn more
Global Signal Exchange (GSE)
In October 2024, Google entered into a partnership with GASA and DNS Research Federation to launch the Global Signal Exchange. The GSE is a global clearing house for online scams and fraudulent bad-actor signals, with Google becoming its first Foundation Member. The collaboration brings together GASA’s unparalleled global network of stakeholders; DNS Research Federation’s data platform, which already stores over 200 million signals; and Google’s deep expertise in fighting scams and fraud. Thanks to the GSE, we are able to speed up detection and raise the alarm about new scamming campaigns across platforms and sectors, and across borders.
Learn more
Risk and Incident Sharing and Coordination (RISC)
RISC was launched initially as a Google framework to share security events with business partners anytime that Google detects a major change in a user account’s status. For example, if a user’s Google Account were hijacked by a bad actor, Google can send a signal to connected apps and platforms, allowing them to take appropriate actions or put additional protections in place.
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Learn more
SG Bamboo Builders
Through Google.org, our philanthropic arm, we have been supporting initiatives like Bamboo Builders, a Singapore-based social enterprise, since 2024, with a $2 million grant to launch SG ScamWISE, an initiative that aims to protect 100,000 underserved youths and seniors against scams and online threats by 2026, including AI-based threats (e.g., deepfakes), through research, policy roundtables, curriculum development, upskilling training, and a youth ambassadorship program.
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Learn more
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Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA)
GASA is a global nonprofit coalition with a broad network of over 100 members and close relationships with law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Europol, and industry sectors such as banks and major tech companies. Google joined GASA in March 2024 as a Foundation Member.
Learn more
Global Signal Exchange (GSE)
In October 2024, Google entered into a partnership with GASA and DNS Research Federation to launch the Global Signal Exchange. The GSE is a global clearing house for online scams and fraudulent bad-actor signals, with Google becoming its first Foundation Member. The collaboration brings together GASA’s unparalleled global network of stakeholders; DNS Research Federation’s data platform, which already stores over 200 million signals; and Google’s deep expertise in fighting scams and fraud. Thanks to the GSE, we are able to speed up detection and raise the alarm about new scamming campaigns across platforms and sectors, and across borders.
Learn more
Risk and Incident Sharing and Coordination (RISC)
RISC was launched initially as a Google framework to share security events with business partners anytime that Google detects a major change in a user account’s status. For example, if a user’s Google Account were hijacked by a bad actor, Google can send a signal to connected apps and platforms, allowing them to take appropriate actions or put additional protections in place.
Learn more
SG Bamboo Builders
Through Google.org, our philanthropic arm, we have been supporting initiatives like Bamboo Builders, a Singapore-based social enterprise, since 2024, with a $2 million grant to launch SG ScamWISE, an initiative that aims to protect 100,000 underserved youths and seniors against scams and online threats by 2026, including AI-based threats (e.g., deepfakes), through research, policy roundtables, curriculum development, upskilling training, and a youth ambassadorship program.
Learn more
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Recent news in Scams & Fraud
May 27, 2025 • Safety & Security
Our latest fraud and scams advisory
Apr 16, 2025 • Google Ads & Commerce
Our 2024 Ads Safety Report shows how we use AI to safeguard consumers.
May 08, 2025 • Safety & Security
How we’re using AI to combat the latest scams
Oct 02, 2024 • Safety & Security
How to spot scams, and what to do if you encounter one
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