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The new requirements will put an end to illegal telemarketing.
India's telecommunications regulator (TRAI) has taken drastic steps to crack down on annoying calls and fraud. On August 13, the authorities ordered telecom operators to block calls from unregistered telemarketers and prohibit them from accessing networks for up to two years.
According to forecasts, this solution should reduce the number of spam calls and make life easier for consumers. As many sources of spam and fraudulent calls target both the Indian domestic market and foreign countries, it is possible that the situation will improve around the world.
According to the order of the authorities, when a telecom operator blocks a telemarketer for violating the rules, it is obliged to share this information with other operators within 24 hours through a special platform based on distributed registry technology (DLT). Companies then have 24 hours to turn off all phone lines or services provided to the spammer. Thus, the intruder will not be able to continue their activities by simply switching to another operator.
TRAI has set a one-month deadline for transferring data about violators to the DLT platform. After that, operators have a week to submit a compliance report to the regulator. In addition, all providers are required to provide updated lists of blocked numbers twice a month.
The measures may seem too harsh, but in reality, the telemarketer is given three chances before being permanently blocked. The first violation entails a warning, and the second-a restriction on the use of the services for six months.
Operators decide for themselves whether the caller violates the Indian anti-fraud and spam regulations based on the complaints received. Moreover, companies are required to create their own systems for processing user claims.
TRAI was forced to take this step after a sharp increase in the number of complaints over the past 18 months. In 2023, 1.2 million negative reviews were received on unregistered telemarketers, and in the first half of 2024 - almost 790,000.
Earlier measures taken to combat this problem have yielded unsatisfactory results. One of the reasons that providers couldn't get rid of annoying calls was that they turned off only one number at a time, instead of depriving the intruder of all resources. In the past, telemarketers could easily bypass any blockage by simply switching to a different carrier.
TRAI also expects that the new rules will help stop fraudsters. The regulator has introduced a blockchain-based list of violators to manage a registry of known attackers, hoping to reduce the scale of the problem. However, there were some difficulties with this method, including problems with one-time login codes. In addition, it did not ensure the registration of all relevant organizations.
However, from the beginning of 2021 to the end of 2022, the number of complaints within India decreased by 60 percent. Although this is a significant improvement, TRAI considered it insufficient and in November 2022 announced the introduction of artificial intelligence to combat this problem.
Unfortunately, there is no information about the results of AI work and its effectiveness yet. However, the new measures taken by TRAI demonstrate the regulator's determination, which can serve as an example for other countries.
Source
India's telecommunications regulator (TRAI) has taken drastic steps to crack down on annoying calls and fraud. On August 13, the authorities ordered telecom operators to block calls from unregistered telemarketers and prohibit them from accessing networks for up to two years.
According to forecasts, this solution should reduce the number of spam calls and make life easier for consumers. As many sources of spam and fraudulent calls target both the Indian domestic market and foreign countries, it is possible that the situation will improve around the world.
According to the order of the authorities, when a telecom operator blocks a telemarketer for violating the rules, it is obliged to share this information with other operators within 24 hours through a special platform based on distributed registry technology (DLT). Companies then have 24 hours to turn off all phone lines or services provided to the spammer. Thus, the intruder will not be able to continue their activities by simply switching to another operator.
TRAI has set a one-month deadline for transferring data about violators to the DLT platform. After that, operators have a week to submit a compliance report to the regulator. In addition, all providers are required to provide updated lists of blocked numbers twice a month.
The measures may seem too harsh, but in reality, the telemarketer is given three chances before being permanently blocked. The first violation entails a warning, and the second-a restriction on the use of the services for six months.
Operators decide for themselves whether the caller violates the Indian anti-fraud and spam regulations based on the complaints received. Moreover, companies are required to create their own systems for processing user claims.
TRAI was forced to take this step after a sharp increase in the number of complaints over the past 18 months. In 2023, 1.2 million negative reviews were received on unregistered telemarketers, and in the first half of 2024 - almost 790,000.
Earlier measures taken to combat this problem have yielded unsatisfactory results. One of the reasons that providers couldn't get rid of annoying calls was that they turned off only one number at a time, instead of depriving the intruder of all resources. In the past, telemarketers could easily bypass any blockage by simply switching to a different carrier.
TRAI also expects that the new rules will help stop fraudsters. The regulator has introduced a blockchain-based list of violators to manage a registry of known attackers, hoping to reduce the scale of the problem. However, there were some difficulties with this method, including problems with one-time login codes. In addition, it did not ensure the registration of all relevant organizations.
However, from the beginning of 2021 to the end of 2022, the number of complaints within India decreased by 60 percent. Although this is a significant improvement, TRAI considered it insufficient and in November 2022 announced the introduction of artificial intelligence to combat this problem.
Unfortunately, there is no information about the results of AI work and its effectiveness yet. However, the new measures taken by TRAI demonstrate the regulator's determination, which can serve as an example for other countries.
Source
