Sanchar Saathi

1. Sanchar Saathi is a citizen centric initiative of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to empower mobile subscribers, strengthen their security and increase awareness about citizen centric initiatives. It contains following facilities:
Chakshu - Report Suspected Fraud Communication: It facilitates citizens to report the suspected fraud communications with the intention of defrauding telecom service users for cyber-crime, financial frauds, non-bonafide purpose like impersonation or any other misuse through Call, SMS or WhatsApp.
Block Your Lost/ Stolen Mobile Handset: It facilitates tracing of the lost/stolen mobile devices. This also facilitates blocking of lost/stolen mobile devices in network of all telecom operators so that lost/stolen devices cannot be used in India. If anyone tries to use the blocked mobile phone, its traceability is generated.
Know Mobile Connections in Your Name: It facilitates a mobile subscriber to check the number of mobile connections taken in his/her name. It also facilitates to report the mobile connection(s) which are either not required or not taken by the subscriber.
Know genuineness of Your Mobile Handset: It facilitates a mobile subscriber to check the genuineness of mobile handset with the help of International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.
Report Incoming International Call with Indian Number: It facilitates citizens to report about the international calls received by them with local Indian number (+91-xxxxxxxxxx). Reporting about such calls helps the Government to act against illegal telecom setup.
2. Steps to use Mobile App are as follows:
User download and install the App and land on the home screen showing about Sanchar Saathi and its services.
Registration alert box is shown to user which provides the information about registration requirement by sending a SMS to DoT on 14422. Further, Name of user is captured.
App completes the verification of the user by sending an automatic SMS in the background and register the active mobile numbers of the device.
Registered user can now access the facilities as detailed above.
App will show the mobile numbers registered in the App in various facilities so citizen can choose from this list to utilize various services.

3. Sanchar Saathi App takes following permissions:
Make & Manage phone calls: To detect mobile numbers in your phone while registration.
Send SMS: To complete registration by sending the SMS to DoT on 14422. This is done only one time for the registration. Registered mobile numbers are used to choose the registered numbers while reporting in various facilities. Further, mobile numbers associated with the registered mobile numbers are shown in the ‘Know Mobile Connections in Your Name’ facility. Sanchar Saathi Mobile App take this permission for the use case of 'Caller ID, spam detection, blocking, or reporting’ and it is the core functionality of the App. Alternate options to register the user has not been adopted in order to capture the active mobile number in the mobile device for ensuring genuineness of the registered user.

Call/ SMS Logs: To report any Call/ SMS in facilities offered by Sanchar Saathi App. This allows citizens to fetch the call/ SMS logs in reporting facilities. Citizen can choose from the call/ SMS logs and details about that communication will be auto-populated for ease of reporting. The call/ SMS logs are available in the phone only. Reported call/ CMS details are only sent to DoT. Sanchar Saathi Mobile App take this permission for the use case of 'Caller ID, spam detection, blocking, or reporting’ and it is the core functionality of the App.
Photos & files: To upload the image of Call/ SMS while reporting Call/ SMS or report lost/ stolen mobile handset.
Camera: While scanning the barcode of IMEI to check its genuineness.