The intruder selfie catches people who type the wrong PIN. Phone Access Snap is for the other case: someone who knows your PIN. A partner, a flatmate, a child, a colleague who watched you type it. They unlock the phone, look around, lock it again, and there is no wrong attempt to catch.
With Phone Access Snap on, every unlock takes a discreet front-camera photo. The app groups the photos by face on the phone itself and shows, for each face, when the phone was last unlocked and how long it stayed unlocked. Mark your own face as me and the list shows only everyone else.
How it works
Photo at every unlock
The moment the lock screen is passed, the front camera takes one photo. No preview, no shutter sound, no notification.
Grouped by face, on the phone
A small face model running on the phone compares each new photo with earlier ones and puts the same person in the same group. You see one row per face with up to five thumbnails and a View all button.
Unlock and lock times
Each row shows the last unlock time and how long the phone stayed unlocked, so you know whether it was a quick glance or twenty minutes.
"Mark as me" to hide yourself
You will unlock your own phone far more than anyone else, so the first thing to do is open Phone Access Snap, find your own group and tap mark as me. From then on the app knows that face is you. Your photos are still taken, but the group is labelled as yours, and a new photo of you does not raise an intruder alert.
If the app splits you into two groups (different lighting, glasses on and off), mark both. Tap unmark as me on any group to undo it. To remove a group's photos, open View all and delete the ones you do not want to keep.
Privacy by design: nothing leaves the phone
These photos are unusual: they include you, your family and anyone you hand the phone to. So Alert24 treats them differently from every other capture. Phone Access Snap photos are stored only on the phone. They are never uploaded to your Google account, never shown in Remote Access, and do not appear in the Intruders Pictures gallery either.
The face grouping runs on the phone too. Alert24 uses Google's ML Kit to find the face in the photo and a small on-device model (MobileFaceNet, a TensorFlow Lite file shipped inside the app) to turn it into a number pattern that can be compared with other photos. Those patterns stay on the phone with the photos. There is no cloud face service and no account needed.
- Photos and face data stored on the phone only.
- Excluded from uploads and from remote views.
- Delete any photo or group from the app at any time.
Why it needs device admin
Android does not tell ordinary apps when the lock screen was passed. The one reliable signal is the device administrator interface, which reports unlock events to the app. That is why Phone Access Snap asks you to enable Alert24 as a device admin the first time you open it. The same permission powers the intruder selfie on wrong unlock attempts.
Alert24 uses device admin only to learn about unlock events. It does not use it to lock, wipe or change the phone's settings. You can remove it at any time in Android Settings under Device admin apps, which turns the feature off. The camera permission is needed as well, for obvious reasons. See permissions explained.
Frequently asked questions
Does the person see that a photo was taken?
No. The photo is taken without a preview or sound. There is no notification on the phone.
Are the photos uploaded anywhere?
No. Phone Access Snap photos and their face data stay on the phone. They are the one type of capture Alert24 never syncs to your account, and they cannot be seen from Remote Access.
Is this face recognition like unlocking with my face?
No. It does not unlock anything and it does not identify people by name. It only decides whether two photos show the same face, so they can be shown together. That comparison runs on the phone.
What happens if no face is found in a photo?
If the photo shows no face, for example because the phone was unlocked face-down or in the dark, the entry is dropped and nothing is listed.
Is Phone Access Snap free?
Yes. It is free to use; free accounts see a banner ad on the screen. Premium removes ads.
Where do I find the photos?
Open the side menu in Alert24 and choose Phone Access Snap. They are not in the Intruders Pictures gallery, which lists alarm and wrong-unlock captures.
Know who has been in your phone
Install Alert24, open Phone Access Snap, allow device admin and mark yourself as me. From then on, every other face is news. Read the privacy policy for how photos are handled.