Robocall scams are very common India And despite numerous warnings from regulators, many users fall prey to suspicious calls. The Indian telecom regulator is now working on a consultation paper that will make it easier to determine who sent the message or who is on the other end of the phone call.
It is working on a technology that will allow the phone to display the name of the caller even if the number is not saved on that person’s phone. The name will be derived from the Know Your Customer (KYC) information that telecom companies must obtain from users before issuing SIM cards.
Tauseef Abbas, Advisor, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said wired That it will take at least one month to prepare the paper for this issue. By the time this is over, the stakeholders will be able to express their opinion on it.
In 2021, there was a significant increase in the number of robocalls in India. According to a report by Swedish company Truecaller, it was the fourth largest country in terms of spam calls in the same year. According to statistics, between January and October 2021, a spammer generated more than 200 million calls.
It was also found that over the years, Indians have been bombarded with fake calls, some of which have resulted in financial losses.
While Truecaller can help identify the caller’s identity in some circumstances, because the information is crowdsourced rather than government data, the information may not be accurate.
Privacy concern
While it’s great to have a means to track down the identity of the caller or spammer, it may not be the best strategy for everyone, especially for those who value their privacy. In this case, some policy experts believe that the effort would be ineffective and would raise privacy concerns.
According to Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Center for Internet and Society, it is beneficial to identify the person behind the spam or scam call. However, he expresses concern about KYC data sharing as the Indian government is yet to pass a data privacy and security law.
Furthermore, Shalini Sivasubramaniam of the Center for Policy Research is concerned about the true purpose of the policy. According to the senior researcher, if the sole purpose of the solution is to determine the identity of the caller, it will not solve the spam problem. wired report good.
She said: “What purpose is it serving if it just informs the caller that this person is calling,” she says. “It’s not going to completely solve the problems of spam calling.”
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