This Android Smartphone Makes Taking Nudes a Forbidden Fruit

A Japanese company called Tone Mobile has created an Android smartphone whose main highlight isn’t the camera or the large display, but a feature whose purpose is to block taking inappropriate photos.

The Tone e20 is an Android 9 smartphone equipped with a so-called Smartphone Protection system, which uses AI to analyze the photos taken with the built-in camera and determine whether they’re inappropriate content or not.

If it is, the picture is discarded and nothing is stored on the device, and if it’s not, you can use the phone just like any other Android mobile device.

As per SoraNews24, there are several tidbits that the Japanese phone maker needs to clarify, including what exactly is flagged as inappropriate and what is not. However, given it’s priced at $180, this Android phone is likely to be particularly popular not only among those aiming for increasing privacy, but also for parents, as the device packs a notification system to send an alert to a configured account whenever an inappropriate photo is detected.

Nude selfie warnings

A blurred preview of the image, along with other data, like date, time, and location based on GPS coordinates, are all included in the automatic warning. Tone Mobile guarantees that nothing is stored on its servers.

Other than that, this smartphone is the average Android device, coming with a 6.26-inch display and 64GB of storage. A triple-camera is used on the back (not for nudes, though), and under the hood you can find an unnamed processor running at 2.0 GHz but whose model wasn’t disclosed, and 4GB RAM.

The Tone e20 also features fingerprint authentication and face recognition, albeit for the latter, it’s very likely to rely on the front-facing camera rather than on dedicated hardware for 3D mapping like the iPhone 11.

The phone is only available in Japan for now, but I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if it ends up being sold in other countries as well given the nude blocker.