Telephone canvassing, however framed by law, continues to harass individuals. But a French application, highlighted by our colleagues from the Citron press, created by a developer of Saône-et-Loire, finally promises to restore the silence to our phones.
A simple, efficient, and 100 % French response
Launched at the end of June on Android, Vigiphone was born out of a shared observation: the anti-demarcation lists as a Bloctel are not enough. Xavier Béliss, the creator of the application, relied on a basis of more than 11 million numbers identified as sources of canvassing or scams. Concretely, as soon as a call enters, the application compares it to this base. If the number is suspect, the phone does not even ring. The call is immediately redirected to messaging.
What distinguishes Vigiphone is its promise: blocking between 80 and 90 % of unwanted calls. No approximate filtering, no half measure: the application is thought of to let only legitimate calls make. And for the rare numbers that would pass through the meshes of the net, the user can report them, thus helping to enrich the common base.
Two euros against tranquility
No subscription, no hidden costs: Vigiphone is bought only once, for 2 euros. A modest price, assumed by its designer, which wanted a solution accessible to all. The model is clear: no advertising, no resale of data, just an autonomous and useful application. An iOS version is in preparation, even if Apple’s technical restrictions make development more complex.
The initiative has already found a positive echo. The first users report a clear drop in untimely calls, and salute a clear interface, which is content to do what is asked … without doing too much.
Another initiative from Rouen
Vigiphone is not the only one to position yourself on this slippery terrain. In Rouen, an old butcher converted into a self -taught developer, Ryan Moreau, launched prefix blocker, a free application that specifically targets calls whose numbers start with prefixes used by call centers.
Less perfected than Vigiphone, its solution has the merit of being extremely simple: if a number begins with a suspicious prefix, the call is automatically rejected. The system is based here on a reverse logic: we block at the source, upstream, even before trying to identify a particular number. Effective, especially against the massive automated canvassing campaigns.
A scourge that resists
Despite Bloctel promises and legal obligations, canvassing remain endemic. In 2024, more than 70 % of French people declared that they still receive unstalled calls, and scams diversified: false banking advisers, usurpation of public services, promises of energy aid … The telephone has become a gateway to the crooks.
The fines imposed on offender societies are not always enough to put an end to these practices. Some structures are even based abroad, or regularly change legal identity to bypass sanctions. In this context, applications such as vigiphone or prefix blocker appear as citizen countermeasures, where public action still struggles to stem the phenomenon.
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