Indian-American's phone app erases all with a shake

An Indian-American entrepreneur has developed a phone app where “adulterers” can make their lovers’ text messages and calls disappear just with a shake of their phones.

The Cate app – or “Call and Text Eraser” – has been made by 25-year-old Boston entrepreneur Neal Desai, the Daily Mail reported.

The app creates an invisible log of calls and text messages and can hide specific numbers from the contacts list.

The screen will never indicate who has called, and at the touch of a button, all private information can be wiped from the phone forever.

Cate - keeping love blind!

If someone walks in while a lover is reading illicit texts, a simple shake of the phone will make it all disappear, the report said.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Unlike other apps, the Cate icon does not appear on the home screen.

A person also needs to enter a secret code to access the app and all the hidden features it provides.Advertised with the slogan, “Love is blind, we keep it that way!”, the app costs $4.99 to download.

Desai bought the app from a Miami police officer, who had developed the programme after seeing his friend dragged through the divorce court thanks to incriminating text messages on his phone.

Desai decided to expand the business by appearing on “Shark Tank”, the American equivalent of BBC2’s “Dragon’s Den” and ended up winning $70,000.

Desai also claimed that professional golfer Tiger Woods, who cheated numerous times on his wife Elin Norgegren, would still be married if he had bought the Cate app, the daily said.

Since the app was launched three weeks ago, it has been downloaded 10,000 times – 70 percent of them by women.

Desai said there were legitimate reasons for using his app.

“It’s a privacy app, essentially, and as with every technology that involves privacy, there is good with the bad,” he was quoted as saying.

“But it is also labelled a privacy application and could have uses for government officials, or corporate business, or for lawyers whose entire business is based on keeping things confidential.”

IANS