South Africa Investigates Truecaller

The Information Regulator of South Africa had reported that it is looking into complaints against the call screening service provider Truecaller.

This comes after a number of businesses and people urged the government to take action against Truecaller in South Africa.

Companies had claimed that by blocking their numbers on the platform and charging them to be whitelisted, Truecaller had hurt their businesses in varying ways.

The regulator further stated that, “We can confirm that we have received a complaint against Truecaller and we are investigating that complaint to be sure of the next line of action. However, we have not received a request to ban the service Truecaller provides in South Africa.”

It made clear that the Information Regulator’s authority is limited to situations in which Truecaller’s treatment of personal data violates the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

“That’s the only way the team can find out whether there has been any misconduct. The regulator will subsequently issue a statement on this matter after the investigation is complete,” it stated.

It had received a number of businesses and individuals petitioned that the Information Regulator to take action against Truecaller in late June 2025.

An Internet telephony company seems to be one of the complainants, while another represented themselves as a small Internet service provider (ISP). The others, on the other hand, complained anonymously.

Regarding their telemarketing technique and its connection to direct marketing, none of the complainants provided specifics.

The small ISP had stated that it hope that they are banned in South Africa.

A forum was provided where anyone can express their opinions plainly about your company, whether positive or negative, including profanity.

With the Truecaller app, individuals can choose either to block any calls or not to, that are automatically marked as spam, and businesses can choose to pay to have their calls accepted or not.

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

They also mentioned that companies have to pay an additional R2.18 (approximately $0.12) each call for customers’ phones in order to accept their calls.

Legal experts had cautioned that Truecaller may have broken a South African law, which resulted in the accusations against the platform.

Ahmore Burger-Smidt, South African’s Director of Werksmans Attorneys, claimed that Truecaller violated multiple POPIA clauses.

The company has previously encouraged users to submit their phone address books in order to gain access to other functions, which is one of the problems according to Trucaller.

“It is undeniable that the Truecaller app raises multiple POPIA concerns regarding the way and intent of the collection and processing of personal data,” Burger-Smidt had further stated.

This is especially troubling when looking at the app from the viewpoint of a company or individual who hasn’t signed up for the service in any way.

And from the standpoint of data protection, a responsible party, in this case Truecaller, can only process a data subject’s to personal information if it has a legitimate reason to do so, Burger-Smidt stated.

“POPIA provides for lawful bases, which include performance of a contract, consent, compliance with a legal obligation, and the existence of a legitimate interest.”

One could argue that there are valid reasons to process the private and personal data of those who sign up for the Truecaller service, she continued.

A subscriber said, “How come they are processing all of the contact information that they have?” And motivating something to be done on the basis of a justifiable interest is extremely challenging.

Burger-Smidt has also and finally emphasised the potential and possibility that non-subscribers were not aware that Truecaller was exploiting their submitted information intially.

Non-users may not be aware that their data has been acquired in the first place, even if Truecaller has a feature that enables them to unlist the numbers.

And in order to achieve this, Burger-Smidt stated that Truecaller ought to send out an email or SMS to every individual who is joined to its database.

The individual may then be notified of their delisting options and taken to the Truecaller privacy policy going forward.

Also In other jurisdictions, Truecaller has been the subject of several data protection concerns.

A Nairobi-based data protection attorney filed a lawsuit against the business in Kenya, claiming that it had violated the Data Protection Act (2019). According to the lawsuit, Truecaller neglected to register with Kenya’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner as a data controller or processor. Additionally, it accused the company of gathering and sending contact information from Kenyan users to India without sufficient safeguards or consent.

The site was the subject of an inquiry by Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). According to NITDA, Truecaller gathers more data than is required and has “illegitimate provisions” in its privacy policy that violate the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR).

With all these it is also possible that Trucaller may be facing a lawsuit or the other in other nations in which it is still not know for now.