Google has been making a big push to improve Android security over the past few years. With that in mind, Android 16 features a new "Advanced Protection" menu, offering various security features to enhance your phone's security. That includes "USB Protection," which is expected to arrive later this year.
Unfortunately, USB Protection may come with a slight drawback. According to Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority, having USB Protection enabled is going to stop your phone from fast charging unless you unlock your phone first.
What is USB Protection?
According to Google, USB Protection is designed to "prevent physical attacks attempting to exploit the USB port by defaulting to charging only for any new USB connection while the device is locked.”
In other words, when your phone is locked, your USB-C port will remain a power-only system. So it's going to stop any kind of USB-based attacks that try to exploit vulnerabilities in your phone and infect your system with god knows what.
It doesn't matter if someone attempts this deliberately or if you're casually plugging any kind of USB device you find into your phone. Either way, it can only be a good thing and helps keep your phone more secure.
All you need to do to restore USB access is unlock the phone. Which should be easy for you, and hard for others. Assuming your passcode isn't something ridiculously easy to crack like "1234."
How does fast charging factor in here?
Rahman noticed the fast charging issue with the latest Android Canary release, which has USB Protection switched on. Code snippets also include dialogue that explicitly states that fast charging is disabled if you plug in while the phone is locked.
It's not clear why this is the case, though Rahman speculates that it could be because of how some fast charging systems actually work. Since they need to transfer some data to determine the correct voltage and avoid causing damage, cutting off that data supply could mean the phone can't initiate fast charging. Which means your charger, regardless of how fast it can go, only provides the bare minimum.
However ,Rahman noted that USB-PD speeds seemingly weren't affected. Either the fast charging protection hasn't been implemented, or USB Protection only affects proprietary fast charging protocols that do rely on transferring data. He admits that it's a little too early to say for sure.
Thankfully, the solution is pretty simple. If your phone won't fast charge while it's locked, the dialogue says that you simply need to unlock the screen and plug the charger back in. Presumably, once the charging session has initiated, it will continue fast charging even if your phone locks again.
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