DoT asked to block ?We Phone? application by IB citing difficulty in tracing calls

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has been asked by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to block the ‘We Phone’ application as it allows spoof calls and it is difficult to identify and locate the actual caller. According to IB, the server of the We Phone application is located outside India and all calls made from the application are routed through the server making it difficult to trace the actual number.

We Phone application allows user to make free calls using mobile internet service to other subscriber having the same application. It is at present accessible on Android and iOS operating systems. The application verifies the user?s phone number at the time of installation and gives an option of hiding it later. For the free version of the application, the caller?s number is displayed with +1777 where as in the paid version any number can be set to be displayed as the caller id.