Preparation for strictness on Truecaller, Call Management Apps come on government’s radar, even important numbers are being reported as spam

Truecaller Spam Calls: Till now it was seen that the rules related to spam calls were limited only to telecom companies but now call management apps like Truecaller, Hiya and Whoscall have also come under the target of the government. The reason for this is that even the authorized numbers of 140 and 1600 series are considered spam or blocked by these apps. Regarding this, the government believes that due to this, even calls from essential services like bank, insurance, hospital, airline and courier are not reaching the people.

What are the numbers of 140 and 1600 series?

It is being told in the information that TRAI has decided these two number series for different purposes so that people can understand the nature of the call in advance. In which 140 series is used for telemarketing and promotional calls while 1600 series is for calls of important services like banking, insurance, healthcare, airline and delivery. Regarding this, the government says that when even authorized numbers are shown as spam, information related to payment alerts, OTP, account updates and important deliveries may be missed due to which common consumers have to suffer losses.

TRAI wants right to action

It is being told that apps like Truecaller are not telecom companies but are intermediaries under the IT Act, hence TRAI cannot take direct action against them at present. For this reason, the regulator has sought the status of Authorized Agency under the IT Act. If this proposal is implemented, TRAI will be able to send notices to such apps for the first time and will also be able to take action on violation of rules.

Truecaller says that just having 140 or 1600 number does not make a call reliable. Regarding this, the company said that after the instructions of TRAI, it has started removing Spam label on these numbers but even after this the users are avoiding these calls. In the last eight months, users have not answered 81 percent of calls on 140 series and 79 percent of calls on 1600 series.

Also read: Meta Business Agent comes on WhatsApp, now AI will talk to customers, will handle the entire work from booking to sale.

What will happen next now?

In this entire matter, IAMAI, an organization of digital companies, has also opposed TRAI’s proposal. The organization argues that such apps come under the purview of IT Act and MeitY, hence telecom rules should not be applicable on them. Now the biggest challenge before the government is to strike a balance between ensuring delivery of essential calls and effectively stopping spam calls. After MeitY’s in-principle consent, now all eyes are on the government’s next decision.