TRAI steps up fight against spam calls, orders telecom operators to blacklist entities

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed telecom operators to disconnect and blacklist businesses using bulk connections for spam calls, including robocalls and pre-recorded voice calls. The entities can be blacklisted for up to two years, and won't be allocated any new resources by telecoms.

The directive includes spam and fraud calls over the traditional phone lines as well as over the internet such as through WhatsApp calls.

"With effect from 1st September 2024, no message, containing URLs/ APKs that are not whitelisted, shall be allowed to be delivered," TRAI noted in its order.

"Also, the technical implementation of Entity and Telemarketer chain binding for ensuring traceability of the message flow shall be completed by the TSPs latest by 31st October 2024," it added.

The decision was taken during a meeting of the telecom regulator with the regulatory heads of all telecom service providers (TSPs). The meeting was attended by the Chief Regulatory Officers of Airtel, BSNL, Quadrant Televentures Limited (QTL), Reliance Jio, Tata Teleservices Limited, Vodafone Idea Limited, and V-CON Mobile & Infra Private Limited.

The parties discussed issues including spam calls where entities send bulk messages over voice calls or the internet using bulk connections. They also discussed the migration of all telemarketers and enterprises making bulk calls to a DLT platform (a blockchain-based system for keeping and managing the record of sender IDs), and whitelisting of URLs for blocking messages containing malicious links.

TRAI had earlier told telecom operators to enhance their mobile apps and web portals to make them more user-friendly for registration of spam complaints.