Here are some of our favorite tips for securing your Android phone or tablet.

We also recommend checking out the LinkedIn course Learning Mobile Device Security for more ideas.

Passcodes

The #1 step you can take is to use a passcode (or swipe pattern, fingerprint, password). Yes, it's one extra step. But someone who picks up an unprotected phone not only can not only make calls and flip through your photos, but they can also plug it into a computer and download all your content. Plus, if they have access to your email and phone, chances are they could easily reset your bank passwords, among other things!

• How to set a screen lock on an Android device. If your device has a fingerprint sensor, you can also this to lock your screen.
• If you use an unlock pattern, make it invisible - it'll be harder for someone to see the pattern over your shoulder.
• Alternate lock screens from the Play store will not protect your phone's content if someone plugs it in by USB.

Google Play Protect

Use Google Play Protect, which checks your apps and devices for harmful behavior, to provide the following checks and notifications:

• Runs a safety check on apps from the Google Play Store before you download them.
• Checks your device for potentially harmful apps from other sources. These harmful apps are sometimes called malware.
• Warns you about potentially harmful apps.
• May deactivate or remove harmful apps from your device.
• Warns you about detected apps that violate our Unwanted Software Policy by hiding or misrepresenting important information.
• Sends you privacy alerts about apps that can get user permissions to access your personal information, violating our developer policy.
• May reset app permissions to protect your privacy on certain Android versions.

Notifications

Notifications that appear on your lock screen could give valuable information to someone who picks up your phone, such as recent text messages or your current calendar event.

You can easily control which notifications appear on your lock screen. In the Notification settings you can decide whether you'd like to show all, none, or only "non-sensitive" content on your lock screen. You can designate certain apps as "sensitive" in their settings. This article does a good job explaining lock screen notification settings.

Find My Device

To be prepared in case you lose your phone or tablet or Wear OS watch, you can check that Find My Device can find it. If your device is already lost learn how to find, lock or erase it.

Related Resource: How to Prepare Your Android Phone to Be Stolen