New Delhi: The Indian Army today issued a circular to its units and personnel cautioning against using the caller identification smart phone application- “Truecaller”.
The decision has come against the backdrop of cases where suspected Pakistani spies have allegedly used it to establish the identity of its officers.
Owned by a European country, “Truecaller” application helps the user to establish the identity of an unknown caller with the aid of its global database of mobile and telephone numbers.
According to Army sources, “Several such cases are reported where suspected Pakistani spies have used the application to establish the identity of Army officers and made phone calls to them or their families trying to cull out information from them.”
“If someone gets hold of one number in a closed user group subscribers, it can be used to establish the identity of other members of the group as the numbers are similar, they said.
The circular was issued to warn the officers and personnel of the ways the application can be misused and the precautions to be taken while having it on their smart phones.
Earlier, the Army had also restricted its personnel from using social media applications such as WeChat which may have servers abroad.
The main concern of the army is that the army officers' activity on the social media could lead to their identification and others and their location.
At present, trend of chatting sites such as Facebook and Wechat have spread like a wild fire in India. They are among the top downloaded applications on smart phones and tablets, use by millions.
Noticeably, many officers have fallen prey to the suspected agents working for Pakistan's ISI and faced strict action from force after that.
