Ever wondered how Truecaller pops up the caller information even before the phone rings? Itโ€™s because the service is using Wi-Fi/data to retrieve the caller information from one end and displays to others, which the regular cellular networks do in a slow way. While it seemed helpful, itโ€™s suspicious too.

The worldโ€™s largest caller identity service has a typical feature that no one thought could be possible. Letting users know whoโ€™s calling even before the phone rings are surprisingly, and seemingly helpful. Truecaller calls it as Caller Alert, and itโ€™s just milliseconds faster than regular ringing.

Moving From Cellular Networks To Data/Wi-Fi

This is How Truecaller Notifies the Caller Info Before Phone Rings
Image by https://truecaller.blog/

If youโ€™re just staring at a screen and notice the alert, you can plan your reaction accordingly. Truecaller said as,

โ€œWhen you see the alert, you can either put your phone on silent, ignore it or move to a quieter place if you want to speak.โ€ This will need the user to enable notifications in settings and if not interested, can be disabled.

This was made possible by leveraging Wi-Fi/data connections than relying on cellular networks. As internet connectivity is way better than regular tower signals, itโ€™s reasonable to depend on them. The cellular networks are so poor that, major telecoms around the world have already enabled Wi-Fi calling feature to their users. Other would eventually follow this as Wi-Fi/data call is found to be more effective than regular cellular connectivity.

Helpful, But Skeptical

Though Truecaller claims this feature to be secure, we can still be sceptical considering its past allegations. Itโ€™s reported that Truecaller is sharing its userโ€™s data with third parties without their permission and itโ€™s even being set up for sale in Dark web once!

Truecaller was found suspicious ever since it was asking too many permissions to function. This led the app to register users onto UPI service by reading OTPs from banks. Later, Truecaller blamed a bug that led this enrollment and has rectified.

Source โ€“ The Quint

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here