Relief to more than 100 crore mobile users of the country: TRAI tightens calling rules

Every day, crores of mobile users in India are troubled by unwanted calls (Spam Calls) in the name of fake loans, insurance, credit cards and lotteries. Many times these calls not only become a cause of irritation, but also become a means for cyber criminals to trap innocent citizens in the trap of digital arrest, UPI fraud and fake KYC. In view of this serious threat, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has implemented strict new guidelines under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR).

The direct objective of these new rules of TRAI is to break the back of the fraud going on in the name of telemarketing and to root out the commercial misuse of common personal numbers. All major telecom operators including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea (Vi) and BSNL have been ordered to ensure 100 percent compliance with these rules.

The most revolutionary change made under the new rules is that now no telemarketer, agency, bank or private company will be able to use the normal 10 digit mobile SIM card for any type of promotional or marketing calls. Till now, fake callers used to call from 10 digit numbers that looked like common people, due to which consumers used to pick up the call thinking that it was a call from some acquaintance or for important work.

TRAI has made it clear that if any Unregistered Telemarketer (UTM) is found making commercial calls from a normal 10-digit number, all telecom resources (other SIM cards and broadband connections) issued in his name will be disconnected with immediate effect. Not only this, such fraud callers will be blacklisted on all telecom networks for at least 2 years, during which they will not be able to purchase a new SIM card from any company across the country.

TRAI has mandated clear classification of calling series for the convenience and safety of consumers:

• 140 Series (Promotional Calls): This series will be reserved only for promotional, advertising and marketing calls. If you get a call on your phone from a number starting with 140, you can immediately understand that it is an advertisement or sales call and you can decide to hang up or answer as per your choice.

• 160/1600 Series (Service and Transactional Calls): Banks, insurance companies, airlines, government departments and essential service providers will now be allowed to call customers only from 160 or 1600 series numbers. This means that if any authentication, payment confirmation or delivery update call comes from the bank, it will be from this series. With this, citizens will be able to easily differentiate between fake calls and genuine bank alerts.

Apart from this, companies using auto-dialer and robo-calls (computerized recorded voice) will have to register its purpose and details with the telecom companies in advance.

To eliminate time spent on manual checking, TRAI has directed telecom companies to install Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) based advanced spam filters in their networks. This AI system will identify unusual calling patterns at the call line identification (CLI) level itself. For example, if an individual SIM is making hundreds of one-way calls to unknown numbers within a few hours, the AI ​​will immediately consider it suspicious.

According to the new rule, if the AI ​​system of a telecom operator marks a number as suspicious, it will be mandatory to share that data with all other service providers through a blockchain based Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform within a maximum of 2 hours. Also, if 5 or more complaints are filed against a number within 10 days, the operator will have to immediately stop outgoing services of that number until the investigation is completed.

Earlier, to lodge a complaint about a spam call, the consumer had to provide details within 3 days and for this it was considered mandatory to be fully registered in the ‘Do Not Disturb’ (DND) service in advance. After the new amendments, many big facilities have been given to the common citizens:

• Complaint deadline extended: Now users can lodge a complaint with their network operator within 7 days of receiving a spam call or message.

• Mandatory requirement of DND registration abolished: Now any customer can directly report spam calls even without any prior preference registration (DND).

• Quick Action Deadline: The time limit for telecom operators to resolve complaints and take action against unregistered callers has been reduced from 30 days to just 5 working days.

• Limited Consent Rules: The validity of digital consent given for any commercial transaction will be for a maximum of 7 days, which means that once you purchase the goods, companies cannot harass you by calling you for the rest of your life.

TRAI has also made the accountability of telecom companies very strict for violation of rules. There is a provision to impose heavy financial penalties if a telecom company fails to take prompt action against illegal telemarketers on its network or is negligent in monitoring spam calls. A fine of Rs 2 lakh will be imposed on the first violation, Rs 5 lakh on the second violation and up to Rs 10 lakh for repeated violation of rules.

Along with this, to prevent fake web links coming through SMS, TRAI has directed all companies to implement mandatory whitelisting of URLs, APK files and OTT links, so that links of fraudulent websites will not be able to reach consumers.

If you still receive any promotional, loan or marketing call from a common 10-digit number, you can lodge a complaint in these simple ways:

• Go to your phone’s message box and write: COMP Call details/number, date (DD/MM/YY) and it 1909 Send it to.

• Go to the official app of your respective telecom operator (Jio, Airtel, Vi) and select ‘DND / Report Spam’ option.

• File a report in one click through TRAI’s official ‘TRAI DND 3.0’ mobile app by selecting the number directly from the call log.