COAI urges equal cybersecurity rules for telcos, OTT communication apps

Industry body COAI on Tuesday said similar cybersecurity and regulatory rules should govern players, be it telecom operators or OTT communication applications.

In a statement on the 'need to address spam calls and messages', the association argued that for a number issued by a telco to a subscriber, the operator takes the onus and responsibility and if required, it can provide all assistance to enforcement agencies.

"However, in this same example, there could be instances whereby an OTT Communication Application used on the same number, may be utilised in another handset of the user, carried beyond the limits of a city/state, and may be used for illegal purposes.

"Here again, while the telecom number can only be traced to the city where the mobile is residing, there are no ways to trace the activities of the OTT Communication App which was initially issued on the mobile number, but is now running off a separate handset, while the SIM is on a different handset," said Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) - whose members include Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

The association highlighted the issue of the app and SIM not being tightly bound together after the installation of the said app.

"COAI feels that the cybersecurity measures need to be reinforced with clear outlines on the purpose, which is to free the people of such unwanted spam/fraud calls and messages to the maximum extent possible. For the same purpose, it may be judicious that similar cybersecurity and regulatory rules govern all the necessary players, such as TSPs or OTT Communication Applications," it said.

This can be the only way to provide relief to the people from such menace, COAI added.

It also drew attention to the issue of 'steganography' or the practice of concealing messages or information within other messages or objects, saying this makes the presence of the hidden message difficult to detect, thereby encouraging fraud.

"In this way, attackers can embed malicious code or scripts within seemingly harmless files, such as images or documents, to infect systems. This is a serious issue which needs to be looked at," COAI said.

COAI welcomed the decision of MeitY (IT Ministry) to take the lead to engage with stakeholders to tackle spam and scams from Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms, as conveyed during the meeting of the Joint Committee of Regulators (JCoR).

"This action by MeitY, apparently recognises the trend of the nuisance of Spam and Scam Calls increasingly shifting to the OTT platforms, especially with the robust measures being undertaken for Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) by DoT along with the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) over the telecom networks," SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI said.

Kochhar added: "Government has now given indication that applications running over the networks need to be controlled by the respective line ministries, rather than appointing the blame and further consequences like penalties, etc. to the TSPs.