Experts on DoT mandate: SIM binding for OTTs unlikely to curb fraud

Industry and policy experts warn the new rules could upend user experience while doing little to curb cyber fraud

The department of telecommunication (DoT) mandate requiring all over-the-top (OTP) messaging services to continuously and mandatorily bind the SIM card to the device on which the account is present is unlikely to solve the problem of telecom cybersecurity, industry executives and policy experts said.

 

They added that it may cause significant disruptions to the user experience.

 

A senior industry executive at a communication OTT company said that DoT’s new directions introduce “quasi-structural changes” to how widely used communication apps, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and others, function in India.

 

“This will have a direct impact on millions of users and multiple businesses. For example, small- and medium-sized businesses that use multiple business web accounts will face significant disruption. Most of their accounts will be logged out without them even knowing or realising it,” the executive said.

 

Several other industry executives and public policy experts said there had been no consultations before these rules were made publicly available.

 

The issuance of directions under the Telecommunications (Telecom Cyber Security) Rules, 2024, without public consultation, is problematic on several grounds. The first being that it is a “misuse of executive discretion emerging from another document issued by the executive,” said Amol Kulkarni, the director of research at CUTS, a public policy, research and advocacy organisation.

 

“Such excessive delegation without necessary checks is a severe concern,” he said.

 

Although the primary intent behind these new directions is to prevent the misuse of OTT communication app accounts from outside the country, their impact would be limited in curbing such instances.

 

 “Scammers do not necessarily use accounts that are bound to devices. They use SIM spoofing and social engineering. All that will continue to happen. This move will target a minuscule portion of those scammers,” Kulkarni added.

 

DoT’s current approach of requiring all communication OTTs to bind the SIM card to the device continuously could also have a limited impact. This is due to practical feasibility and proportionality concerns, as it creates regulatory asymmetry, Kazim Rizvi, founding director of public policy advocacy group, The Dialogue, said.