Google has issued a reCAPTCHA Android API as part of Google Play Services.
reCAPTCHA is a free service developed by Google 10 years ago that protects websites from spam and bot abuse. It works to separate bot activity from that from actual humans, by asking the visitor to retype a word presented in distorted text or solve some other simple puzzle.
The mobile API will use Google’s newest Invisible reCAPTCHA, which runs risk analysis behind the scenes.
“Now mobile users can enjoy their apps without being interrupted, while still staying away from spam and abuse,” said Wei Liu, product manager at reCAPTCHA.
reCAPTCHA Android API is included with Google SafetyNet, which provides services like device attestation and safe browsing to protect mobile apps. Mobile developers can do both the device and user attestations in the same API to mitigate security risks of their apps more efficiently. This adds to the diversity of security protections on Android: Google Play Protect to monitor for potentially harmful applications, device encryption, and regular security updates.
“Over the years, reCAPTCHA has changed quite a bit. It evolved from the distorted text to street numbers and names, then No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA in 2014 and in March this year,” said Liu. “By now, more than a billion users have benefited from reCAPTCHA and we continue to work to refine our protections.”