TRAI issued a consultation paper proposing certain amendments to its anti-spam regulations. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday (August 28, 2024) issued a consultation paper proposing certain amendments to its anti-spam regulations, even as the regulator struggles to keep up with a renewed flood of fraudulent and spam calls and SMS messages proliferating in India.

The proposed amendments to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 include a mandatory tariff for phone calls placed and text messages sent from ten-digit mobile numbers beyond a certain quantity every day.

TRAI sought “stronger financial disincentives for violation of regulatory provisions, and revised regulations for senders and telemarketers,” the regulator said in a press release.

The consultation follows a series of steps the regulator and different government bodies have taken as spam calls rise. On Tuesday (August 27), a joint committee of regulators, chaired by TRAI with representatives from the Reserve Bank of India, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), and other government bodies, met to discuss the menace of spam and fraud communications. 

Also Read: TRAI tells telcos to crack down on SMS spammers

The scams are growing in sophistication — just last week, for instance, TRAI put out a clarification that “lot of pre-recorded calls are being made to the citizens claiming to be from TRAI,” with the regulator warning that it “does not initiate communication with customers regarding mobile number disconnection through messages or otherwise.”

TRAI’s moves, which have typically been far-reaching in the past as well, went further this month. The regulator “prohibited [telecom providers] from transmitting messages containing URLs, APKs [installation files for Android apps], OTT links, or call back numbers which are not whitelisted by the Senders.” The existing 2018 regulations already require bulk SMS senders to register templates with a blockchain ledger, and for telcos to prevent delivery of any bulk SMS messages that don’t conform with a registered template. 

Misuse of so-called headers, which are alphabetic sender IDs for SMS messages sent by businesses, have also come to TRAI’s attention, and the regulator has now mandated that such misuse should be quickly reported and addressed by telemarketers. These regulations follow over a dozen meetings held between TRAI and telcos since April, and nine meetings last year. 

The DoT has also been soliciting reports from the public on fraudulent calls and messages through its Chakshu portal, resulting in over 28,000 mobile handsets being blocked from accessing telecom networks, and over 20 lakh phone numbers being required to re-verify their SIM registration.