California [USA]: Google detailed how it took down malicious apps and developers from the Play Store last year in its new security report.

In 2019, Google recorded a 98 per cent decrease in apps accessing SMS and call log data. It was further able to stop over 790,000 policy-violating app submissions before they even made it to the Play Store, the official blog notes.

The company enacted a policy to better protect families in May 2019 to update or remove tens of thousands of apps to make Play Store safer.

It also launched a refreshed Google Play Protect built-in malware protection for Android devices that prevented more than 1.9 billion malware installs from non-Google Play sources. (ANI)