Everyone¡¯s after your phone number--from banks, restaurants, insurance companies and online shopping platforms to third-party telemarketing firms. It¡¯s become such a common process that people instantly give out their personal phone number as a barter for increased convenience.
But this seemingly innocent act could be detrimental to your privacy and online safety, leaving your bank account vulnerable to hackers and exposing you to attacks from trolls and stalkers. At the very least, you¡¯ll be fed up with an endless stream of irritating calls and spam messages and continuous attempts of scam, phishing, and fraud.
Caller identification app Truecaller identified 29.7 billion spam calls and 8.5 billion spam SMS for its 150 million monthly active users in India last year, making it one of the top ten spam-hit countries in the world. Telecom operators were responsible for more than half (54%) of all spam calls followed by telemarketers, who comprised another 34 per cent.
More recently, more than half a billion Facebook users¡¯ accounts were leaked online that also includes phone numbers and other details of 6 million Indians. This data is available on the internet for free and can be exploited by threat actors to perform SIM swap attacks to steal multi-factor authentication codes sent via SMS.
Tackling the root cause of the problem is a Hyderabad-based startup called Doosra, which provides consumers with an alternate 10-digit SIM-free mobile number that can be shared anywhere and with anyone. So instead of using your real phone number to sign up for such services, users can use this app-based ¡®virtual¡¯ number. This not only protects their digital identity but also helps keep their personal lives private.
¡°The one big difference between a regular number and a 'Doosra number is that Doosra blocks all calls by default,¡± said founder Aditya Vuchi in an interview with Indiatimes.
¡°What it does, essentially, is that even if the number is given it at multiple places, if they try to reach you, the IVR (an automated telephony system that interacts with callers) will say the person you're calling is not available and if you want you leave a voicemail.¡±
Users can choose to unblock and listen to the voicemail messages at any time. They can also add unknown numbers as a ¡®trusted contact¡¯ on the app, allowing calls to get forwarded to your regular number. All incoming messages are also silently placed in the Messages folder on the Doosra app and can be reviewed later.
¡°So the idea is that instead of allowing all calls and blocking them later, Doosra blocks all calls and you can allow certain calls to come through,¡± Vuchi said, highlighting that the app basically flipped the whole notion of a mobile number on its head.
But how would a delivery guy from Zomato or Swiggy contact the end customer? Well, the startup has partnered with services like Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo, Ola and Urban Company to forward their calls to a user¡¯s primary number. They are listed as ¡®trusted services¡¯ and are on by default. Users can also disable it and the app would block it just like any other call.
Founded in May 2020 by serial entrepreneur Aditya Vuchi, Doosra app was soft-launched three months later in September. ¡°Doosra was largely born out of a personal pain point,¡± he said, before narrating how he was denied services at several places, including a sports goods store, after he refused to share his mobile number at the billing counter. ¡°So I reached out to the telecom operators to see if we can provide a virtual mobile number and felt it was valuable enough to make it available to consumers like you and me.¡±
The company is working with leading telecom operators in the country to help generate virtual numbers on the existing personal phone numbers. A Doosra number can be shared at malls, restaurants, pharmacies, grocery stores, dating and delivery apps as well as on digital platforms.
The startup didn¡¯t share the exact number of subscribers it has so far, but Vuchi did say that it has seen close to a million messages from about 25,000 sender IDs. He added that the current aim is to hit a million subscribers in a year.
The app is available on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store, the subscription of which costs ?699 for a year.? The company also offers a premium plan that allows users to add unlimited ¡®Trusted Contacts¡¯ and sign up for messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal using the virtual number.
This is particularly interesting. A couple of weeks back, the government said that it¡¯s working with WhatsApp to develop a solution that would allow it to trace the message originators without breaking encryption. This follows the Centre¡¯s notification of IT Rules, 2021 back in February that mandates traceability of first originator of a message flagged by either a court of law or an authorised government agency.
In the face of increasing government surveillance, having a virtual number adds another layer of security. Say, if your message or post has been found guilty, the government would first have to reach out to social media sites. And when they find out that the number associated with the account is that given by Doosra, they would again have to issue an order to the company to access your primary number. You get the drift!
¡°One of the key things that we tell our customers is that your data is not going to be sold to any other business. And, that¡¯s why we charge from day one,¡± Vuchi says. ¡°I believe that the next 10-15 years are going to be very much focused on both data privacy as well as consumer privacy. And having solutions like ours allows people to have a separate digital identity.?
¡°But at the same time we have to be compliant with the prevailing local regulations. Which means that if any approved authority were to come to us and ask for the information available for this specific number we are by law bound to do so. So, from that perspective, we will abide by.¡±
Vuchi says that Doosra is a privacy-focussed product and unlike most third party apps, it doesn¡¯t ask for access to user¡¯s call logs, phonebook, photo gallery, or any other information.
¡°We don¡¯t touch your primary number at all. We aren¡¯t like Truecaller that sits on your primary number and filters calls. Because what we believe is that Doosra is giving you a new public identity that you can start to give out at any place where you don¡¯t want to give out your personal number.¡±
Spam messages and unsolicited commercial calls have been a perennial problem. Those in India can register on the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry that telemarketers need to take into account, but the service has become defunct over the years. What¡¯s even unsettling is that around 93 million phone numbers registered with the service was available for sale on the Darknet.
India¡¯s telecom regulatory body TRAI has come up with a fresh guideline--Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation, 2018 (TCCCPR)--that requires every SMS/text message to be verified before it is delivered. All telemarketers need to register themselves on a DLT (distributor ledger technology) platform, which is a block-chain based registration system to control the SMS spam from various marketing firms.
¡°These are all complementary solutions,¡± Vuchi says. ¡°What Doosra is trying to do is allow you to have an independent identity that you can use in the digital world. The whole aspect of being able to block all calls, by default, gives a certain element of empowerment and control back to the consumer.
?¡°Whereas the solutions that DLT and TRAI are putting together is making sure that at some extent phishing calls and phishing messages may potentially be addressed. But it does not solve the problem of the fact that your primary mobile number is also being used as a public identifier, in all the systems in the world,¡± he concludes.