OwlCaller
Privacy policy
What OwlCaller collects, why, and how to get out of it.
Last updated 16 August 2026
What is collected
Your account
- Your phone number, confirmed with a code sent by WhatsApp or SMS.
- Your name, and — only if you enter them — an email address, a short description and a profile photo.
- Your country, so numbers typed without a country code can be understood.
Your phonebook
Names and phone numbers from your contacts are uploaded to the OwlCaller server and used to identify callers for other people. This is what makes the app work; there is no version of it that identifies unknown numbers without a pool of names to draw on.
Your call history — Android only
On Android, the app uploads call log entries: the number, whether the call was incoming, outgoing or missed, when it happened, how long it lasted, and which dialler app placed it. Only calls from the last 90 days are sent. iPhone does not give apps access to call history, so on iOS none is collected.
Your device
- A device identifier, platform and app version, so sessions can be managed.
- SIM details — carrier name and country — used to read national numbers correctly.
What you look up and report
- Numbers you search for, kept as your search history and to count your daily allowance.
- Spam reports you file, including the category and any reason you type.
Technical
Your IP address is used to rate-limit sign-in codes and lookups, so the service cannot be flooded. It is also used once, before you sign in, to work out which country you are calling from, so the sign-in screen can offer the right dialling code instead of guessing. That lookup is made by ipwho.is, which receives the address and nothing else, and the answer — the address and a two-letter country code — is kept for seven days so the question is not asked again. Neither use is attached to your profile or used to build one.
What is not collected
No message content
The app never reads your SMS or WhatsApp messages.
No precise location
Location permission is never requested and GPS is never read. The only thing known about where you are is the country your connection appears to come from, described under Technical.
No call recording
The app records the fact of a call, never the audio.
No trackers
No third-party analytics, advertising or crash-reporting SDK. Your data is held on owlcaller.co and nowhere else; the only outside services involved are TopMessage, which delivers your sign-in code, and ipwho.is, which is asked which country an IP address is in. Both are named below and receive nothing beyond what is described.
Who else sees it
- Other users, in one specific way: the name your contacts have saved you under can be shown to someone you call who does not have your number saved. This is the core exchange, and the way to leave it is to have your number removed.
- TopMessage, the messaging provider, receives your phone number in order to deliver your sign-in code by WhatsApp or SMS. Nothing else is shared with them.
Your data is not sold, and is not shared with advertisers or data brokers.
Permissions, and taking them back
Nothing is uploaded before you grant the permissions the app asks for. You can withdraw contacts or call log access at any time in your phone's system settings, and the app stops uploading immediately. Anything already uploaded is covered by the two sections below.
Removing your number from the directory
Anyone can ask for this, whether or not they use OwlCaller — the people most likely to want it are not users. Write to support@owlcaller.co with the number. We confirm it is yours before acting on it — by sending a code to it, or by another means we agree with you — and then:
- every community-contributed name for that number is deleted, and
- the number is blocked from all future search results, permanently.
The confirmation step is not a formality: without it, anyone could erase anyone else's entry, which would be its own kind of harm.
Ask for a number to be removed
Closing your account
In the app, under Profile. Closing an account immediately clears your profile — your name, email, description, photo and country — and ends every signed-in session.
If you verify the same number again later, the account reactivates and your history is still there rather than colliding with it. To have the retained records erased as well, write to support@owlcaller.co and say so — that request is handled by hand.
Children
OwlCaller is not intended for children, and accounts are not knowingly created for them.
Changes
If what the app collects changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. Material changes will be announced in the app.
Contact
Questions, data requests and complaints: support@owlcaller.co.