The Beta version of Android 14 is already available for some smartphones. Google recently released a second Beta update, and some users have discovered some of the privacy features in the new system.
Currently, native Android’s screen recording feature allows users to turn off sound recording and hide touch actions. The new screen recording feature in Android 14 will allow users to limit recording to a single app and choose not to record any system UI elements or notifications.
Mishaal Rahman showed how both functions work on Twitter. When a user taps a single app screen to record, the recently opened apps are displayed. You can also view a complete list of apps. If the user exits the app in the middle of recording, the screen goes black until the user returns to the app, so that the user’s actions on other apps are not recorded. In addition, pop-up notification messages are not recorded.
Alternatively, users can choose to record everything but hide sensitive information, such as the notification bar. The entire status bar is hidden during recording.
Some privacy-related screen recording features are already available on some Android customization systems, such as Samsung’s OneUI, but this is the first time these features have been implemented on native Android.