Android Q said to bring more ways for carriers to SIM lock your phone

Android Q has been in the news for the past week and some of the changes include system-wide dark mode and new permissions settings. However, there seems to be a downside as the new code changes suggest that the network carriers will have more ability to lock your phone down to specific networks via your SIM card. Four commits were posted to various parts of Android's Gerrit source code management, entitled “Carrier restriction enhancements for Android Q.” In them, it is evident that the network carrier will have more fine-grained control over which networks devices will and will not work on. It will be possible list down “allowed” and “excluded” carriers. It is even possible to allow blocking virtual carrier networks that run on the same towers as your main carrier. Changes are also on the way for dual-SIM devices. At the moment, carriers can set individual restrictions for each SIM slot, but with Android Q, carriers will be able to lock out the second slot unless there’s an approved SIM card in the first slot. This SIM lock restriction is applied immediately and will persist through restarting the phone and even doing a factory reset. However, in both cases, emergency phone calls will still work as expected, ...

Read Here»