Truecaller plans to stop call recording feature, here’s why

New Delhi: Google is making yet another major effort to prevent third-party call recording Android apps. From May 11, Google will prohibit all call recording apps from the Google Play store. In fact, all legitimate call recording apps for Android will cease to function. So, if you want to record voice calls on your phone, you'll have to rely on your smartphone's native call recording feature. If your smartphone lacks a built-in call recording feature, you will be unable to record calls after May 11.

Having said that, you may always use a voice recording app on another smartphone to record a phone call after you set it on speaker.

Truecaller, one of the most popular dialer apps in India, is also used by many users to record voice calls. Call recording is, in fact, one of the most popular features of the Truecaller app in India. Truecaller has confirmed that it would no longer provide the opportunity to record phone calls around the world.

An official Truecaller spokeswoman said in a report, "At Truecaller, we have introduced call recording for all Android handsets based on overwhelming consumer requests." Truecaller's call recording function was free for all users, permission-based, and needed users to enable the capability using the Google Accessibility API. However, due to the new Google Developer Program restrictions, we are no longer able to provide call recording."

Truecaller noted that this will not affect handsets that have built-in call recording. Few smartphone manufacturers, including Xiaomi, Samsung, OnePlus, and Oppo, include a built-in call recorder capability that will continue to function after May 11.

For several years, Google has taken action against call recording. It all started with the Android 10 version, when Google announced that the call recording capability would be removed as part of its privacy and security plan. For this functionality, all call recording apps, including Truecaller, used the Accessibility API. Now, the Accessibility API covers a wide range of topics, and rogue apps have been seen exploiting these permissions to follow users.

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