Truecaller now lets you hang up on scammers – on behalf of your family

Caller ID platform Truecaller recently launched a new feature that allows one person to become an admin of a family group, get alerts about scam calls other members are receiving, and even hang up on their behalf if they suspect a family member may be being scammed.

The company that ended 450 million usersFirstly The feature launched in December In a few countries like Sweden, Chile, Malaysia and Kenya. Truecaller said that after seeing promising results, it decided to roll it out worldwide, including India, the company’s largest market. This feature is free, and users can create groups even if they are not subscribed to Truecaller’s paid plan.

With this feature, a tech-savvy member of a family or friend group can become an administrator for a group of up to five members. Once other members join the group, the admin can get alerts about potential fraudulent calls received by those members. If the administrator believes the call could harm the member, they can end the call remotely as well. While an admin can get alerts about scam calls when a member is using iOS or Android, they can only end member calls on Android.

On Android, members can also give permission to the admin to detect real-time activity such as walking or driving, battery level, and phone sound settings (to check if the phone is on silent mode). Truecaller said this is useful for administrators to monitor elderly members and contact them only when they are not walking or driving.

The admin can also block specific numbers and international dialing codes and share the block list with group members.

Truecaller noted that the admin cannot see the non-spam call history or SMS history of group members.

“I think, unfortunately, we all know someone or another in our families or friends who has been affected by fraud,” Kunal Dua, vice president of product at Truecaller, told TechCrunch over a phone call. “In that sense, this is a fundamental shift for Truecaller in terms of what we were focusing on as a problem,” he added.

Last year, Truecaller was introduced Voicemail feature for Indian users It features an AI assistant that listens to calls when the user is not available and provides a text summary. The company is exploring a similar Family Protection AI approach to alert a supervisor about the type of scam call a group member is receiving.

The company is also exploring using AI to automatically screen and disconnect calls when certain words associated with scams are detected, such as “digital arrest” — a tactic in which perpetrators impersonate law enforcement officers to extract information or money from call recipients.

In India, scam calls have risen over time and are causing financial losses across the country. Truecaller said it identified more than 7.7 billion fraudulent calls last year. Indian authorities fired Multiple initiativesincluding A Controversial policy It is called SIM card binding which may hinder the functioning of apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Truecaller faces headwinds. Its stock has dwindled by more than 80% in the past 12 months. During its Q4 2025 report, the company said EBDITA — a measure of operating profitability — fell 49% year-over-year, with advertising revenue down 31%. The company is also facing challenges from India Display caller name (CNAP) system that displays the caller’s name as registered with his telephone operator. Truecaller emphasized that simply displaying the caller’s name will not reduce spam calls, arguing that its platform goes further by offering community reporting.

“In India, there has been a lot of talk about the impending rollout of CNAP,” Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala said during its Q4 2025 earnings call. “CNAP has been partially rolled out, and so far, the impact on our user growth is limited. As we’ve said in the past, we expect CNAP to have some impact on user growth, but that remains to be seen as CNAP reaches full deployment.”

“Our focus continues to be on delivering a differentiated product, and as you know, the consumer can choose to have CNAP and Truecaller in parallel, where we provide a lot more information, a lot more context and many other solutions to the consumer,” Jhunjhunwala continued.