Truecaller to partner with Airtel, Jio and Vi for user safety

Truecaller is reportedly planning to work with Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vi (Vodafone Idea) to protect users against spam, fraudulent calls, and SMS. As India continues to adopt more digital solutions for payments, watching movies, and even travelling on public transport, identification data is easily compromised. If hackers gain access, they can generate spam messages and calls. In some rare cases, bad actors show up at your door posing as Amazon or Flipkart delivery executives to steal your money. Truecaller already has multiple measures, at least on Android, to stop unwanted calls and SMS. However, a partnership with major Indian telecom players can substantially improve security.

Nami Zarringhalam, Truecaller's chief strategy officer and co-founder, said the company wants to adopt "artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions" to weed out spam and phishing scams, which are common in the cybersecurity space. Asked if the company is working with telcos, Zarringhalam said: "Not all three are at the same table, but all three separately."

Truecaller co-founder adds, "I think what is really positive is that this area (spam and frauds) has gotten the attention with TRAI confirming that this is an issue, and it is causing harm to people. There are so many stories about people, for instance, senior citizens, who lost their savings by being defrauded and then the kind of shame and guilt that they might feel on an emotional level."

The company is likely referring to the Indian Telecom Regulatory Authority consultancy paper, Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) Introduction in Telecom Networks, last year. The telecommunications agency was exploring the option of displaying caller ID on phones to help users identify a potential spam caller. However, the three telcos, through the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), rejected the government's suggestion, citing cost and privacy concerns. Jio has said there were privacy concerns about the mandatory activation of the CNAP service on all devices.

The COAI also suggested that not all devices can adopt CNAP, and on eligible gadgets, users have caller ID apps like Truecaller. On CNAP, Truecaller told the publication: "This is a welcome step by TRAI as they are looking at this issue and seeing that it is a problem in society that we need to try to address."

With such partnerships, Truecaller also hopes to expand its presence in India, with a large customer base. The report notes that the Swedish company has opened its office in Bangalore, the first outside of Sweden, with some 200 employees.