The Electronic Frontier Foundation is celebrating Google's addition of a 2G kill switch to Android 12.

If you're in a country where legitimate uses of 2G are long dead, the standard only serves as an attack vector via fake cell phone towers, so why not just shut it off.

The second problem with 2G is that there is no authentication of the tower to the phone, which means that anyone can seamlessly impersonate a real 2G tower and a phone using the 2G protocol will never be the wiser?

This is generally the default for web communications, but depending on how your carrier and phone are set up, carrier services like SMS and phone calls could be more vulnerable.

This 2G kill switch is a new feature in Android 12, but which phones are actually getting it.

As is usual with Android, the answer is complicated, and the switch is not coming to all Android 12 phones.

The actual HALs don't get updated much, so your best bet for getting a 2G kill switch is buying a new Android phone launching with Android 12, not a phone that is being upgraded to Android 12.

As the release notes say, "Carriers can disable the feature at runtime." With all the possible variables here, the only way to really know if killing 2G is supported is to open the settings and look.

I can confirm the switch is on the Pixel 6, and the EFF says to check some newer Samsung phones.

If you want to kill 2G and have a normal settings layout, the switch is at "Settings > Network & Internet > SIMs > Allow 2G." If your OEM scrambled the Android settings for the purposes of "differentiation," try searching for "2G" or hunting around the cellular settings.