Truecaller – Consent for Minors

Author: Viceroy Research Published on: September 29, 2022 Published in: Truecaller TRUEB:SS

Truecaller’s app facilitates strangers’ contact with minors without valid consent.

PLEASE READ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER – PAGE 3

September 29, 2022 – Viceroy research has fielded calls from concerned data protection specialists in India in relation to how Truecaller handles consent for minors.

Truecaller sign-up does not request a users age (only access to all of their other personal information). Truecaller indiscriminately collects data from users under the age of 18 in India, and indeed globally. This data is uploaded onto their public phone-book.
Truecaller’s enhanced search spyware indiscriminately pulls contact data of minors and uploads this data into its public phone-book. Users cannot obtain unilateral consent from their contacts, especially if those contacts are minors.
Data of minors (and all users) is actively available to strangers online without their consent.

Truecaller is actively in breach of global regulations.

We believe Truecaller will have to obtain consent from all users, and remove non-users from its database.

Until yesterday the sign-up screen for new Indian and non-EU users had the Enhanced Search feature available and auto-ticked. This feature has now been removed from sign in. We do not know where it is, nor do we know if it is automatically turned on.

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