Truecaller now allows iPhone users to filter spam messages. By updating the Truecaller app and enabling the SMS filtering option, users will be able to filter the spam messages that they receive. The company has also revamped caller ID and spam calls detection on the iPhone, with the aim of making Truecaller a lot more reliable for iOS users. India is fifth on the list of countries most affected by spam texts in 2019, as per a Truecaller report.
Truecaller’s Director of Product (Messaging) Kunal Dua announced the update on Twitter. To access the SMS filtering option on your iPhone, update the Truecaller app. Then, go to Settings > Messages > Message Filtering (Unknown and Spam) and select Truecaller under SMS filtering.
Due to lack of access and privacy settings, Truecaller doesn’t work as smoothly on iOS as it does for Android. The new features are an attempt to change that.
Truecaller’s new update aims at ensuring more reliable spam call detection on iOS. To access the same, go to Settings > Phone > Call Blocking & Identification, and select all the options of Truecaller that you see.
As per the changelog on the App Store, phone numbers that have been searched for previously will automatically get identified next time onwards, on Truecaller’s 11.12 version. This update also fixes bugs for spam call detection, making the process smoother.
India has a history of being a country that receives a lot of spam calls and messages. According to a report by Truecaller, India was the fifth country in the world most affected by spam calls in 2019. Although India had dropped to this position after being the most spammed country in the world just a couple of years back, the report claimed that spam calls in India had been increasing by 15 percent over the year.
Operators continue to be the top spammers in India, with 67 percent of the spam calls being attributed to them. 16 percent of spam calls in India in 2019 were linked to telemarketing, 10 percent to financial services, and six percent to other spam callers. Truecaller noted that the rise of mobile payments and a growing middle class in India had contributed to banks, fin-tech companies, and outsourced telemarketing services emerging as big spammers in the country.
Another report found that one out of three women in India face sexual harassment or receive inappropriate calls or SMS on a regular basis.
Truecaller said that in 2019, it helped users block and identity 26 million spam calls globally.
Disclosure: Kunal Dua from Truecaller previously worked at Gadgets 360.
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