How many of you have noticed getting caller ID alerts on your mobile, even before the phone rings? That’s because, Truecaller is now giving you the caller information prior to the call making its way through to yours, using Wi-Fi or data.
The company, known for its caller ID service on mobile, is calling it the Call Alerts feature, and it was first announced back in November last year. We all know how inefficient mobile networks can be in our country, so much that telcos have resorted to offering Wi-Fi calling feature for its users, and Truecaller is doing the same for its app now.
Getting a call alert and even getting to know who’s calling you, is a trick that you probably didn’t know will ever happen but with the call alert feature that’s exactly what the users are getting.
Truecaller says, using this feature, users can either put the phone on silent, ignore it or pick up if the incoming call is important. This feature according to Truecaller, needs the notifications permission on your phone to work. Having said that, users can always disable the feature from their phone’s setting, whenever they like.
Truecaller claims the ‘Caller alert before calls connect’ feature works securely, using the data/WiFi running on the other person’s phone to send alert to yours.
“When a Truecaller users calls you, you will see a notification appear on your phone before the call is connected or rings. Since data/Wifi is faster than a regular cellular network, the notification reaches you first, before the actual call comes through.”Truecaller blog post
The feature has been spotted working on Android phones over the past few weeks, and even though we are not sure about the so-called ‘secure’ nature of how the feature works, it’s possible that most users would find this helpful.
All said and done, Truecaller has been notorious in the way it functions, with many alleging that it shares data with third-party companies, which puts our skepticism into the perspective.
Last year, reports suggested Truecaller data of users was selling on the dark web, and few months after that, the app was having a bug which was onboarding its users to Unified Payment Interface (UPI) account without taking their consent.
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