Will be compliant with the new data protection laws: Truecaller CEO

As Swedish caller identification app Truecaller touched 250 million active users milestone in India, CEO and co-founder Alan Mamedi believes there is still a lot of headroom for growth here, and does not anticipate any changes in how its "privacy-focused, permission-based system" works as new regulations come up in the country.

Mamedi asserted that the company will be compliant with the upcoming data protection laws in India and "welcomes any and all actions in the mission to make communication safe and efficient".

Mamedi, who was recently in India along with Truecaller's Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder Nami Zarringhalam, said the company appreciates Trai consultation on Caller Name Presentation (CNAP) and remains "very supportive of this and any future initiatives they have".

The telecom regulatory authority of India (Trai) recently asked telecom companies to take immediate action to curb pesky calls and messages, initiating a slew of measures to crackdown on the issue of spam, and instances of fraud.

Truecaller said it remains focused on core aspects of its service, that is, protecting the highest number of people from unwanted or malicious communication.

"There is a lot of room to grow, even in India. We currently have 250 million active users here, even though there may be over 500 million data connected smartphones," Mamedi told PTI.

On new regulations such as Digital India and digital personal data protection bill that are taking shape, Truecaller CEO affirmed that the company is already compliant with data protection laws in many other nations, and will abide by upcoming norms in India as well.

To a specific question on whether the company sees challenges to its business model from the new rules in offing in India, Mamedi said, "We do not anticipate any changes in how Truecaller works as a result of upcoming regulation."

Truecaller "is already a privacy-focused and permission-based system", he emphasised.

Asked if Truecaller's data collection processes and practices will stand the scrutiny of the new data protection law that India is proposing, Mamedi in an email interview said: "We have been compliant with all data protection laws introduced in other countries from day one and this is not really an issue or anything new to us. And we will also be compliant with the upcoming data protection laws in India."

In fact, he added, all India users' data was localised in here more than five years ago, well ahead of any regulatory requirements.

Truecaller has recently hit this new 350 million-milestone and launched SMS Fraud Protection which, Mamedi said, is indicating "great results" to curb growing cyber frauds and scams.

Mamedi and Zarringhalam met investors and external partners during their India visit, last month. "Due to paucity of time, we could only visit Bengaluru where we have our new office. We met our teams here and also discussed the upcoming projects and recent launches which we recently announced in public," Mamedi said.

The company has also inaugurated its largest office outside of Sweden, in Bengaluru. And while it has smaller offices in Gurugram and Mumbai, Mamedi said if the need arises, Truecaller may also consider opening offices in smaller cities to better serve different parts of the country.

"One of the big updates is that we are in the process of launching Truecaller Call Assistant for Android users and some more interesting features for iOS as well," the Truecaller top boss informed.

The company is seeing a healthy growth in other large regions outside of India as well, "which is exciting".

"Our verified business listings continues to grow and there are almost 2,000 large business customers across 36 countries," Mamedi elaborated.

All of the features within the Truecaller app are fully consent-based, Mamedi pointed out.

"There are some misconceptions about how the app and service works. Truecaller does not harvest user's contacts/address books or make them publicly searchable when you download the app from Google Play or iPhone App Store," he said, adding that Truecaller is community-driven service that relies on direct feedback from millions of users each day.