New Delhi: If your phone rings as soon as you open your eyes in the morning or in the middle of some important office work and an offer of bank loan, credit card or property from an unknown number starts flashing on the screen, then take a sigh of relief. To crack down on spam and robo calls that harass the general public every day, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has implemented major changes in the rules. Now, with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, telecom companies will automatically find such vicious callers and take direct action against them.
AI system will identify suspicious numbers
It has been made mandatory for all major telecom service providers in the country to deploy AI and machine learning based systems in the network. This technology will be able to rapidly identify patterns of number change and suspicious activities of spam callers.
If any suspicious sender is found on an operator's network, its information will be immediately shared with other telecom companies. This will make it easier to take action against fake callers and effectively stop spam calls.
If 5 suspicious numbers are found in 10 days, service will be canceled
While making the rules strict, TRAI has also fixed a clear trigger mechanism. If 5 or more mobile numbers belonging to a single person, entity or sender are found involved in spam activity within 10 days, the telecom company will immediately initiate an investigation. Under this investigation, physical verification of that sender and fresh KYC will be done again. Until the investigation is completed or the issue is detected, outgoing call service to all numbers of the concerned sender will be blocked with immediate effect.
Pre-recorded and robo calls used extensively by companies have also been brought under complete control. Telecom operators will have to declare complete information before releasing automated calls made under A2P (Application-to-Person). Any automated call made without prior notification or approval will be directly categorized as spam communication and blacklisted. TRAI has also clarified the situation regarding official series like 140xx, 1600xx and 1601xx used for commercial messages and calling. No third-party call management app will be allowed to blanket block or mark this entire series as spam, so that legitimate calls to banks and essential services are not disrupted. However, the common user will be completely free to block or filter any particular number at individual level as per his convenience.