In a bid to thwart fraudsters who try to pose as officials of the force and extort the public, the Delhi Police has signed a pact with Truecaller — the popular caller identification and spam blocking mobile application. The initiative will help citizens identify verified numbers and protect themselves from scams made in the name of government officials, the officials said.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Delhi police and the caller ID verification platform will help "the public identify verified numbers and distance themselves from cyber frauds and scams relating to impersonation in the name of government officials."
“Now, MOU signed with Truecaller will educate our officers related to cybercrime frauds. Green badge and blue tick will provide in true caller and also government sevices badge will also be given following which they will verify all the official contact numbers of the Delhi Police,” Special Commissioner Sanjay Singh told ANI.
“Since fraudsters have many times posed as officials of the force and extorted money from the public by displaying pictures of senior officers on their WhatsApp profile. This will help users identify verified numbers and protect them from frauds and scams relating to impersonation in the name of government officials.”
All verified numbers of Delhi Police will have a green badge and a blue tick mark, with a government service tag highlighting that it has been verified for users.
"Through our collaboration with Delhi Police, we want to able to tackle impersonation…you will see now if any Delhi Police representative calls you there will be green badge or blue tick so that when you recivieng the call as a citizen you will know that you are talking to police office no body impersonating you as leading to frauds," Director of Public Affairs, Truecaller, Pragya Misra said.
"We are very excited about our partnership with the Delhi Police ... Our sophisticated Caller identification and Spam detection feature for calls and SMSes continue to play an important role in preventing people from frauds and scams. We stay committed to promoting safety in digital communications, especially for vulnerable sections like first-time internet users, women and senior citizens," Misra told CNBC-TV18.com.
In addition to educating Delhi residents and holding a joint awareness campaign against cyberfraud, police said that Truecaller will help display official numbers of the Delhi Police representatives on the app’s government directory services, PTI reported earlier.
"During the COVID pandemic, Truecaller had helped us a lot because there were a lot of scams and frauds reported then on the pretext of selling oxygen cylinders, concentrators, medicines and other essentials associated with treatment of the deadly virus. So, then our officials identified the number of those fraudsters and alerted Truecaller which displayed those unverified numbers as spam," Suman Nalwa, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Public Relations Officer), told PTI.
"This (MoU) will help users identify verified numbers and protect them from frauds and scams relating to impersonation in the name of government officials. All verified numbers of Delhi Police will have a green badge and a blue tick mark,” Nalwa added.
