India to Impose Regulatory Changes to Combat Robocall Scams

In India, the incidence of robocall scams is widespread. Many users fall victim to the suspects despite several warnings from the regulators. Still, this is not enough to combat this problem in the country.

Recently, the country's telecom regulator wanted to propose a policy that could combat scammers and spammers. Here, it will be easier to identify who's the sender of the message or the person behind a phone call.

India Finally Addresses Robocall Scams and Spams

As per Wired's story on Friday, June 3, India is now on its way to preparing for a consultation paper that will tackle how to suppress the growing cases of robocalls in the country.

In an interview with the news outlet, India's Telecom Regulatory Authority advisor Tausif Abbas said that it would take them at least a month to ready the paper for this concern. By the time the paper is now finalized, the stakeholders will take part in sharing their views about it.

In 2021, India recorded a huge trend in the incidents of robocalls. In the same year, it was the fourth-highest country with the most number of spam calls.

Truecaller, a Swedish company that aims to block unwanted communication, posted a report about India's case. From January to October 1, 2021, the report says that more than 200 million calls have been generated by only a single person.

The impact of this issue has caused India to lose a lot of money every day. The fraudulent calls have become commonplace in a country that lacks regulations to stop them.

Anti-Robocall Apps Strike Privacy Concerns

While it's good that there could be a way to find out the caller's identity or the spammer, this might not work as a plan for others, especially those who want to treasure their privacy.

According to the policy experts, the effort that the authorities could make will be "futile" because it undermines the safety of the user's personal data.

Per Center for Internet and Society policy director Pranesh Prakash, recognizing the person behind spam or scam calls is indeed helpful. However, he shares that he's concerned about the KYC data sharing because the government of India has not yet passed a law about data privacy and protection.

Aside from that, Shalini Sivasubramanian from the Center for Policy Research is worried about the real intention of the policy. The senior researcher said that if it only aims to determine the identity of the caller, the solution does not solve the spam issue.

"What purpose is it serving if it just notifies the caller that this person is calling," she says. "It's not fully solving the problems of spam calling," Shalini added.

If India wants to push through a strict regulation to diminish robocall cases in the country, the government should refer to the Truth in Caller ID Act from the US.

Former President Barack Obama signed it into law more than a decade ago. According to Sivasubramanian, India could use this as a guide for its draft.

The legislation looks forward to punishing robocallers, spammers, and scammers. It deploys automatic detection for suspicious callers.

Robocalls in the US

According to a previous report by USA Today, about 4.4 billion robocalls took place in March. The data came from the YouMail robocall index.

The report also included that Florida, California, and Texas are the states with the most incidents of robocalls.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Joseph Henry