The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has stated that Truecaller is not linked to the country’s subscriber identity module (SIM) registration database, warning that the platform’s results are not always accurate.
The Executive Vice-president (EVC) Aminu Maida, who stated this during press briefing on Monday,18 August, 2025, added that Truecaller is not a formal platform for verifying identities.
“Every time you install Truecaller, what happens is that they upload your entire address book
“So if you have put a number there and you have used a derogatory language, for example, if somebody uses a derogatory language, Truecaller will actually record whatever you have put against that name.
“Of course, it will also compare it against if it has seen that number from the upload of other users. So whatever we see in Truecaller is not necessarily a reflection of the truth. In most cases, it is, but it is not an authority on record ” he said
According to Maida Maida, telephone numbers are a limited national resource assigned by the International Telecoms Union (ITU), a United Nations (UN) body responsible for telecoms regulation and standardisation.
The EVC, who said the phone numbers are recycled due to limited availability, with inactive lines becoming candidates for reassignment after a year, noted that certain numbers are considered premium and sought after, particularly those with desirable sequences or original allocations.
“If they’re not being used, they are recycled. If Truecaller has linked it to somebody’s name, the link could still be there, but it has been assigned to somebody else,” he said.
