Publishers of applications to record the content of your phone calls on Android have a lot to worry about. Google has just announced a strengthening of the rules for developers publishing their applications on the Play Store. As of May 11, they will no longer be allowed to use the Accessibility API, the use of which has so far been misused by developers for their application to record audio calls.
“The Accessibility API is not designed to record remote audio calls and cannot be called upon to do so” can be read on the support page dedicated to the Developer Program Rules.
By establishing this new rule, Google wants to limit the possibility for third-party applications to record phone calls remotely, without the interlocutor on the other end of the line being notified. However, the Mountain View company does not specify whether the applications affected by this change will be ejected from the Play Store.
However, Telephone applications installed natively on smartphones are not affected by this measure. This is the case, for example, of the Google Phone application on Pixels or the Mi Phone application installed by default on Xiaomi smartphones. Since these applications are installed natively on the devices, they do not need to access the Accessibility API to be able to access the audio stream of telephone calls.
Therefore, if the phone application installed natively on your Android smartphone includes such a function, you can always use it to record your calls. On the other hand, if you use a third-party application downloaded from the Play Store to record your calls, it should no longer work.
Source : 9to5Google