Google has started to roll out a rapid air raid alerts system for Android users in Ukraine to help citizens get to safety before an attack.
The tech giant made the announcement yesterday (10 March) along with a list of further measures it is taking in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Google said that millions in Ukraine are now relying on air strike alerts to get to safety during Russian attacks, and it is launching a new rapid alert system for Android phones.
“This work is supplemental to the country’s existing air raid alert systems, and based on alerts already being delivered by the Ukrainian government,” Google said in a blog post.
Google vice-president for engineering Dave Burke tweeted that the system leverages Google’s low-latency alert mechanism that it built for earthquake alerts.
“The system starts rolling out today and will ramp up to target all Android phones in Ukraine over the next few days,” Burke said on Twitter yesterday.
Along with this feature, Google shared new restrictions it is imposing against Russia.
The tech giant said it is continuing to “significantly limit recommendations globally for a number of Russian state-funded media outlets across our platforms”. Google has already removed the apps of Russian state-media groups RT and Sputnik from Google Play in Europe and is now removing apps from state-backed media beyond these organizations. It has also removed RT and Sputnik from search results within the EU.
Following the company’s decision last week to pause Google ads in Russia, it said yesterday that it has paused “the vast majority” of commercial activities in the country. This includes new Cloud sign-ups, the payments functionality for most Google services, and monetization features for YouTube in Russia.
Google said it has also paused ads on its properties and networks globally for “all Russian-based advertisers”.
“We can confirm that our free services such as Search, Gmail and YouTube are still operating in Russia,” the company said. “We will continue to closely monitor developments.”
