Warning! Do not install this Truecaller App in your phone!
Most of the people having an android phone do have this app on their phone.
Those who don’t know what Truecaller is, it’s an app that tells you the names of the unknown people calling you.
(You may search it on Google Play Store)
Did you know that all your call recordings, messages, chats and contacts are getting leaked from your phone through Truecaller? I will get into the details, but first of all, you must know how this app works.
Truecaller collects the data from phones of people who have installed it, and saves it on its server. And then technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence is used to assign a particular name to a particular phone number. It is called “CROWD SOURCING”.
Let me explain this by an example:
Suppose, there is a person named Ramesh Kumar Singh whose number is saved in three person’s (Let’s say A, B & C) phone.
A saved his name as “Ramesh Kumar”.
B saved his name as “Ramesh Kumar Singh”.
C saved his name as “Ramesh Kumar Sh”.
So what Truecaller does is that it finds the common name in all three person’s contact list and assign it a name by itself. In this case, the common name comes out to be Ramesh Kumar.
This is how Truecaller works.
Now let’s get into the details of how this app is stealing all your data from your phone.
When you install Truecaller from Google Play Store, the app asks certain permissions before installing. But most of the people just ignore those permissions and install this app on their device. The permission includes access to the camera, contacts, Location, SMS, Storage, Calling and microphone access as well.
(Pic for representation)
Detailed permission list
If you visit Truecaller’s official website and check their privacy policy, you will be shocked to see the amount of information they collect from your phone. Let me just list out few of the many data they collect:
- Device location
- IP Address
- Device and hardware settings
- Operating system
- Web browser
- Screen resolution
- Usage statistics
- Applications installed on the device
- Contacts
- Device Log
- Messages
- Device ID
(Screenshot of their privacy policy)
Do you think an app which identifies the name of an unknown caller needs all the above information? The app is just taking advantage of people’s unawareness and negligence.
So, if you love your privacy and data, uninstall this app from your phone otherwise, you will keep blaming Facebook and Google, and Truecaller will steal all your data under your nose.
Thanks for reading. :)
Image sources: Google Images
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