Truecaller, the popular caller identification app in India, is planning to shake hands with the telecom trifecta in India to curb fraud. The news comes from Nami Zarringhalam, chief strategy officer and co-founder of Truecaller, who told ET that Truecaller is in talks with Airtel, Jio, and Vi to offer its services to carriers. This comes at a time when the May 1 deadline by TRAI to telcos for implementing AI to curb financial fraud is fast approaching. Truecaller is offering its newly-launched AI-based SMS fraud and fraudulent phone call prevention services to telcos in India.
Truecaller in Talks with Airtel, Jio, and Vi to Prevent Spam Frauds
Blind spots can lead to accidents, but we prevent you from falling prey to fraud by disabling suspicious links. #StayAheadOfFraud #DoMoreWithTruecaller pic.twitter.com/CC6v5fdMhx
— Truecaller India (@truecaller_in) April 22, 2023
For the uninitiated, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked telecom operators in India to showcase their solutions to curb phishing and spam fraud. Vodafone Idea (Vi) is the only telco that has demonstrated its anti-phishing solution in collaboration with Tanla Solutions. Moreover, TRAI has also set the May 1 deadline for telcos to implement AI to curb financial fraud through pesky messages.
At this point, when Airtel and Jio are working tirelessly to develop their own solution, Truecaller has reached out to all three telcos with its solution. Zarringhalam told ET that Truecaller is in talks with all three telcos separately in this regard. This move is unsurprising since out of 350 million global users, 250 million Truecaller users are in India. The Swedish company is offering to look after the telco users’ security, which is its user base as well.
Zarringhalam said, “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.”
Truecaller recently launched AI-powered SMS fraud protection, which shows a red notification on a potentially fraudulent message, warning users not to take any action. The screening and processing of the fraud protection take place locally on the device, so the user data is safe. The red fraud notification can be manually dismissed, but Truecaller will disable all links in the message unless the user marks the sender as safe.
The company recently launched one of the most anticipated features – iPhone Live Caller ID. The feature uses Siri to identify the calls and display the caller details on the screen. While Android already had live caller ID for decades, the feature was not as effective on the iOS platform. Now, all calls not recognised by Truecaller will be screened by Siri. All the user has to do is say, ” Hey Siri, search Truecaller” while the phone is ringing to get all the information displayed on the calling screen. However, currently, this is available only to Truecaller Premium users.
