The Bombay Supreme Court has issued a notice to the central and state governments, National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) and ICICI Bank requesting a response to the petition with instructions against the Truecaller mobile application.
Truecaller app on Android
The Bombay Supreme Court has issued a notice to the central and state governments, National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) and ICICI Bank requesting a response to the petition with instructions against the Truecaller mobile application.
Law students Shashank and Manasi Posture and Bisma Mulla have filed a public interest lawsuit alleging that millions of users need immediate protection because of the unlawful collection of their data by Truecaller. The petition states that the app allegedly accesses users’ contact details and automatically registers users on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and links their bank accounts. The petition claims that such collection of data would have a negative impact on national security and would be an invasion of user privacy.
The petitioners alleged that Truecaller’s personal sensitive financial information such as bank account information or credit / debit card information or UPI information was breached after users automatically registered their users with UPI without asking for their consent.
The Truecaller allegedly created UPI IDs for its users who had accounts with ICICI Bank. Truecaller collected information such as geo-location, IP address, device ID as well as browser history and data on the calls made. The petitioners said that the data Truecaller collected could be used for marketing and promotional calls, thereby violating user privacy.
The NPCI, an umbrella organization for the operation of retail payment and settlement systems, was founded by the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks Association to create a robust payment and settlement infrastructure in India. The petitioner’s complaint against NPCI was that NPCI had allegedly failed to monitor the functioning of Truecaller and ICICI Bank.
The petitioners claim that they have reached out to all authorities with their complaint. But they say they didn’t get any responses other than from Truecaller which was not a satisfactory response.
What Truecaller has to say
In response to the notice issued by the court, Truecaller issued a press release refuting the allegations in the PIL and calling it false information.
Truecaller assured that the mobile application complies with data protection laws. The statement reads: “Truecaller practices ‘data minimization’ – only the data is used that is necessary for the functioning of our service and nothing else”. Truecaller stated that they have discontinued offering UPI payment services and have not registered any new users with UPI since August 2019. It goes on to say: “Truecaller is a data protection-oriented service that is built on trust. We adhere to data protection laws and are ready to comply with other data protection laws anywhere in the world. In addition, Truecaller practices “data minimization” – only the data is used that is necessary for the operation of our service and nothing else. “They further assured:” We want to assure all Truecaller users that their data is safe. Truecaller sells or does not share user data. We care deeply about our users and their data and would like to assure them that we will handle their data securely and process them in accordance with our privacy policy “.
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