Another Questionable Move, CyanogenMod Adding TrueCaller CallerID

[DroidModderX]

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On the surface the inclusion of Caller ID in CyanogenMod seems pretty nice. This is a feature that you would pay your carrier for, but things get a little fishy when you consider this service is being provided by TrueCaller whose business practices are suspect and even illegal in Europe. TrueCaller shares your personal contact information when you give it permission. This means that your friends and families contact information will be available for anyone who uses TrueCaller.

TrueCaller explains how they are legally able to collect your contact's information inside their terms of service.

By allowing Contact Information to be collected, You give Truecaller a right to use that Contact Information as a part of the Service and you guarantee that you have any and all permissions required to share such Contact Information with us. You may opt-out to prevent the sharing of Contact Information at any time.

According to TrueCaller it is your responsibility get the consent to share contact information from every person in your contacts list prior to using TrueCaller. TrueCaller claims to currently have 1.6 billion phone numbers in their data base. You can opt out of using TrueCaller, but you can't force others to opt out of sharing your information if you happen to be in their contacts list. Caller ID would be a great feature to have on CyanogenMod, but is it worth risking your privacy?

via XDA

 

[wicked]

I've been using TrueCaller for quite some time. Caller ID at its finest.

 

[johnomaz]

I put in a few phone numbers. Mine came up empty, that made me happy. My wife's phone number came up some random person. Shes had that number for almost 10 years now. Her mom came up with her facebook profile picture too. Thats scary.

 

[creaky]

Don't like this invasion of privacy at all.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

It's basically a crowd-sourced caller ID. I'm not even convinced that they use Google or any other public source at all. My fiance works in a medical office building as a receptionist. She called me from one of the offices while I was trying True Caller (I'm 98% sure that's the app I was using) and it came up "Gram's Doctor." So, somebody obviously had that saved in their phone that way, or input it manually into the app. I changed it, but after that, I figured I was better off with my standard practice of, if it's not local and/or already in my phone book, the caller gets to leave a voicemail and I'll call back if it's someone I actually know.