Google India announced it issued over 4.1 crore fraud warnings on its UPI-based platform Google Pay and blocked nearly 60 million high-risk app installations through AI-powered security systems. The company also launched a “Safety Charter for India”, partnering with IIT-Madras to enhance post-quantum cryptography and build future-ready privacy protections.
Google India, the Indian arm of Google LLC — a US-based multinational technology company specializing in internet-related services and AI products — has flagged over 4.1 crore potentially fraudulent UPI transactions on its payments platform Google Pay using its in-built AI fraud detection system. The tech giant also blocked more than 60 million high-risk app installations across Indian Android devices.
The announcement was made as part of its “Safety Charter for India”, unveiled on June 17, which outlines Google’s long-term strategy to safeguard India’s digital ecosystem using artificial intelligence and collaborative cybersecurity initiatives.
The tech company, headquartered in Mountain View, California, said that these warnings were powered by its AI-driven fraud detection tools on Google Pay, India’s widely used UPI-based digital payment system. It comes amid rising concern over UPI-related frauds, which cost Indian users over USD 130 million (INR 1,087 crore) in 2024, with incident counts nearly doubling from the previous fiscal year.
In a broader security initiative, Google reported that its Play Protect pilot program, launched in October, blocked app installations on 13 million devices, preventing more than 2.2 lakh unique malicious apps from causing harm. These apps were identified as threats capable of infecting devices or stealing personal data.
India’s digital journey continues to unlock incredible opportunities, but we also see the rise of sophisticated online threats evolving at machine speed.”
Heather Adkins, Vice President of Engineering at Google Security
Google also warned that cybercrime could cost Indian entities over USD 2.4 billion (Rs 20,000 crore) in 2025 if left unchecked, citing research by cybersecurity intelligence firm CloudSEK.
Collaboration with IIT-Madras for Quantum-Ready Security
In a major academic collaboration, Google has joined hands with IIT-Madras to advance research in Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). This partnership builds on their 2022 alliance, where Google became a platinum member of the institute’s Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI), with an initial investment of USD 1 million.
The company also revealed that its Gemini AI is being trained in 29 Indian languages, with tools such as IndicGenBench developed to evaluate generative AI’s safety and performance in local contexts.
Anti-Scam Measures & DigiKavach Initiative
In February 2025, Google expanded its anti-scam initiative DigiKavach, in partnership with the Indian Home Ministry’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). This rollout aims to educate users and strengthen protections against deepfakes, AI-generated content, and voice cloning scams.
Additionally, Google’s AI safeguards are being integrated into other core products:
- Google Messages blocks over 500 million scam texts monthly in India.
- Over 2.5 billion unsafe link warnings have been issued using on-device threat detection.
The company is also using AI-assisted red teaming, where AI models simulate attacks against each other to identify and close security gaps, in collaboration with the Department of Telecom, SEBI, and other Indian regulatory bodies.
“Google’s surfaces and platforms are just one component of a vast digital ecosystem… Safety is a shared responsibility,” the company said.
As India’s digital economy grows at an unprecedented pace, Google’s focus is on building resilience, awareness, and innovation-driven protection to ensure secure digital experiences for over a billion users.
