Unsolicited sales and spam calls are a daily nuisance for many, but after receiving dozens every day, 38-year-old web developer Camille Bouvat decided to build a solution.
Last year, the Toulouse native launched his app, Saracroche, designed to block unwanted calls.
“What bothered me most were the constant spam calls, like solar panels and Enedis,” Mr Bouvat told The Connexion.
“I was using other apps, but they no longer blocked calls unless you paid for a subscription, which I thought was expensive. I wanted something free, with more transparency over data use.”
Camille Bouvat, app creatorCamille Bouvat
Initially, the application was meant just for him and his close circle, but gradually more users joined. Today, the app has more than 600,000 users.
Mr Bouvat relies on the French Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications, Postal Services and Press Distribution (ARCEP) to gather data for the application.
'Blocks 10 to 20 spam calls a day'
The app functions slightly differently depending on whether a user has an Android device or an iPhone.
Users download the app and activate the blocking feature, which registers the app as a call-blocking tool within the phone’s system.
Then, a database of known scam numbers is downloaded and stored locally on the device. Once installed, the app blocks unwanted calls automatically on the phone itself, without requiring an internet connection.
“I don’t have detailed statistics because the app doesn’t store much information (almost none) to protect privacy. But many users report that it blocks 10 to 20 calls per day. Multiplied by the number of users, that easily adds up to millions of calls blocked daily,” Mr Bouvat said.
Most users tend to be older, as they are more vulnerable to these calls due to long-standing phone numbers that may have been included in data leaks.
“I receive questions and feedback through emails and reviews on the Play Store and App Store. I’ve got a lot of reviews, more than 6,000, which is really rewarding. I also get thank-you emails, which makes me happy because it means the app is truly useful.”
For Mr Bouvat, creating the app was the easy part, as he has been a developer for 18 years.
The real challenge has been managing the influx of emails, questions, feature requests, bug reports, and issues with different phones. Handling all this takes several hours each week.
“I’m doing everything alone in my free time; I don’t have a big team,” he said.
The feature, already launched on iOS and soon to be available on Android, is being expanded to detect scam SMS messages as well, particularly fake delivery notifications and other fraud attempts.
Mr Bouvat also hopes to expand the app to other countries, although each has its own phone numbering system and not all make this data publicly available, as France does.
As the application is free to use, Mr Bouvat supports the project through donations, though currently only about 1% of users contribute.
