A group of companies want to chase Truecaller out of South Africa

Several companies and individuals are lobbying the Information Regulator to crack down on Truecaller in South Africa.

Agrieved business owners have said that Truecaller has harmed their companies by flagging their numbers on the platform and charging them a fee to be whitelisted.

One business identified itself as a “small ISP”, while another appeared to be an Internet telephony provider. Others who complained did so anonymously.

None of the complainants provided details about their telemarketing strategy or their relationship to direct marketing.

“I hope that they get banned in South Africa,” the small ISP stated.

“They create a platform where they allow anyone to say anything about your business, good or bad, even swear words.”

Truecaller then offers a setting in the app that blocks all calls flagged as spam by default. However, businesses can pay for their calls to be allowed through.

“For a ridiculous fee — $590/month for 5000 calls — they will whitelist your number so your business can get through to clients again,” the ISP stated.

It said the fee amounts to R2.18 per call extra that South African businesses must pay for customers’ phones to allow their call.

“Neither we as a small ISP, nor our customers, can afford this. Why should the South African businesses be blackmailed and extorted like this by a foreign company?” they said.

The complaints came after legal experts warned that Truecaller might have broken the law by encouraging users to upload their phone address books to its platform in exchange for access to certain features.

Werksmans Attorneys regulatory practice head Ahmore Burger-Smidt warned that this potentially violated Popia in two specific ways.

Firstly, the law states that personal information may not be transferred outside of South Africa unless the foreign entity has binding corporate rules or agreements that comply with Popia.

Secondly, Burger-Smidt highlighted that it was possible non-subscribers did not know their data had been uploaded and that Truecaller was using it.

Although Truecaller provides a function that allows non-users to unlist their numbers, she said the problem is how those users would know their data had been collected in the first place.

“To this end, Truecaller should notify, by SMS or email, each person who is added to its database,” Burger-Smidt argued.

That person may then be directed to the Truecaller privacy policy and be informed of their ability to delist.

Formal complaint against Truecaller

Whenever MyBroadband has enquired with the Information Regulator about the legal opinions surrounding Truecaller, it said anyone was welcome to file a complaint for them to consider.

At least one such formal complaint was filed last year, which could lead to an investigation and potentially an enforcement notice for South Africa’s favourite anti-spam app.

Truecaller’s global head of corporate communications, Hitesh Bhagat, previously denied that the app violates privacy laws by harvesting users’ contacts.

Bhagat said one of the biggest misconceptions people have about Truecaller is that it requires access to a user’s contacts during signup.

“You shouldn’t confuse ‘contacts access’ with ‘contacts upload,’” he said.

He explained that Truecaller is a dialler application and offers a call screening feature that requests access to a user’s phonebook to determine whether the person calling is a contact.

If they are a contact, then the app will disengage from the call and allow you to answer them. However, if the caller is not one of your contacts, it intercepts and screens the number calling you.

Truecaller also previously told MyBroadband that it tried to balance people’s right to know who was calling them with their right to privacy.

It emphasised that non-users could unlist their numbers, that users sharing their contacts was their choice, and that obtaining the necessary consent was up to them.

“This way, the inherent fundamental right of users to know who is calling them is balanced with any person’s desire to be unlisted,” Truecaller said.

“This way, we endeavour to make users’ communication safe and trustful and help them to save themselves from potential fraud and other crimes.”

Spam killing voice calls

While some businesses may believe Truecaller has harmed their ability to reach customers by telephone, the truth is that spam itself is killing voice calls in South Africa.

Ask anyone with a cellphone in South Africa and they will likely tell you that they no longer accept calls from numbers they don’t recognise, except those who must answer unknown calls for work.

Several factors have led to the rise in telephone spam. One key problem is that spammers and scammers have been able to access trusted phone number prefixes, beginning with regular landline numbers.

When people stopped accepting those calls, spammers began using cellular phone numbers. This includes abusing unlimited mobile calling plans or spoofing (faking) a cellphone number.

The Internet Service Providers’ Association (Ispa) has said that it is illegal for call centres operating from fixed premises to use mobile numbers, and called on industry regulator Icasa to step in.