Many phone manufacturers use Android as their Operating System (OS). Due to this, there is a huge variation in the power and quality of the phones the workforce has access to.
This Help section aims to provide some basic guidance, updates, and best practices to help keep your OS safe and compatible with the latest digital services we have on offer.
From November 2022, Google Play will be updating its policies to ensure any new apps or app updates meet certain pre-requisites in order to be published on the stores, and for you to find apps on the store.
From November, any new app or app update must only work on an Android OS that is at most 2 years older than the latest Android OS system. This means that any Android version older than 2 years from the latest version of Android will not be compatible with apps released from November 2022 onwards. You can see what the latest version of Android, and when your phone's version was released on this Wikipedia page.
Incompatible phones will either fail to open specific apps or be unable to find them on the Google Play Store.
From November 2022, Android apps the SSSC will need to comply with this new policy, so in order for you to access these apps, please consider keeping your Android OS up to date.
As Android OS is in a huge variety of phones, it also means that the security of Android devices can be compromised more frequently.
To reduce this risk, Google releases updates to Android OS to continually improve your security and keep you and your data safe when using Android.
At the SSSC, to ensure our apps comply with the latest Google Play policies, and to be confident that your data is safe, we continually update our apps and services to meet Google's guidance on making our apps secure.
This means that older Android versions eventually may become incompatible with certain apps we publish.
To keep your own data and phone safe, and to access apps published by the SSSC to the GoogleP Play Store, we recommend that your Android phone is updated occasionally.
Your phone will often prompt you to update it, so we find it is best to allow the device to update itself overnight to keep your OS up to date.