Regulators' panel brainstorm on taking action on spammers making robo calls

A joint panel of sectoral regulators brainstormed on taking urgent action on spammers making promotional voice, robo and pre-recorded calls in a meeting convened by the telecom regulator Trai on Tuesday.

The joint committee of regulators (JCOR) was attended by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MoCA) and Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), an official statement said.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) and Home Ministry representatives also attended the meeting as special guests.

The regulators deliberated on business entities making commercial voice calls using cloud-based telephony and fixed-line connection-based private exchanges, with hundreds of indicators in violation of Trai's regulations.

"These entities should be migrated to the designated 140 series for making promotional calls. Also, there is an urgent need to take firm action, without further delay, on spammers, who are using PRI/ SIP/ bulk connections for making promotional voice calls, robocalls, pre-recorded calls," the statement said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has mandated all telecom operators to migrate telemarketing calls starting with 140 series to an online blockchain-based platform latest by September 30 for better monitoring and control.

All telecom operators have been mandated to block the transmission of messages, containing web links or any other online link or callback numbers, which are not whitelisted by the senders from September 1 onwards.

During the JCOR meeting, regulators discussed the misuse of headers and templates of SMS for the transmission of malicious links, using the variable parts of the messages.

In case of misuse of headers and content templates, it is difficult to identify the sender.

Trai has mandated that all transmitted messages from the sender to the receiver should be traceable from November 1 onwards.

The regulator deliberated on enforcing mandatory whitelisting of URLs (web links), APKs (application links) or call-back numbers within the timelines set by Trai.

The committee discussed the use of the 160 series for service and transactional calls.

"A pilot study was commissioned by Trai and RBI to determine the technical feasibility of various options, the outcome of the same was discussed," the statement said.

During the meeting, emphasis was given to the exchange of information available with various regulators on their platforms and for its effective utilisation to control frauds, the statement said.