TRAI tightens spam rules with AI-based detection; firms face KYC checks, service curbs for repeat violations

Telecom regulator TRAI on Friday tightened its framework to curb Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC), incorporating artificial intelligence-based detection of suspected spam into its regulations and introducing a consumer appeal mechanism.

Under the amended regulations, telecom service providers will identify numbers with a high probability of being used for sending spam and share the information among themselves. The move is aimed at enabling operators to act against suspected spammers across networks rather than limiting enforcement to individual service providers.

Where five or more numbers associated with a sender are flagged within 10 days, further investigation and graded action will follow. The action can include KYC re-verification, physical verification, barring of outgoing services and, in cases of repeated violations, disconnection of the connection.

Tighter scrutiny of automated calls

TRAI has also defined Application-to-Person or A2P calls as calls initiated by an application, software system or automated platform without direct human dialling. The definition covers autodialling, robocalls and pre-recorded or artificial voice technologies.

Entities using A2P calls will have to pre-declare their use and the numbers being used to their telecom service provider. Calls made without such declaration will be treated as UCC, bringing them within the regulator's anti-spam framework.

A termination charge of up to 5 paise per minute has also been introduced for A2P calls, with specified exemptions.

"A2P calls made through any numbering series designated by authority for regulated commercial calls, and authority-authorised calls are exempted from termination charges," TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) said.

Safeguards strengthened against misuse

The amendments also strengthen complaint-based action, providing an additional route for consumers to flag suspected unsolicited communications and seek redressal.

TRAI has further strengthened safeguards against misuse of headers and content templates, which are used to identify the source and nature of commercial communications. The revised framework also seeks to prevent indiscriminate blocking of legitimate calls.

The framework is intended to make enforcement more coordinated across telecom networks, while giving consumers additional safeguards against unwanted communications and reducing the scope for legitimate calls to be incorrectly identified as spam.

Call-management applications have been prohibited from blanket blocking, filtering or spam-tagging calls originating from designated 140xx, 1600xx and 1601xx numbering series. These series are used for regulated commercial and service-related communications, making safeguards against indiscriminate filtering important for legitimate callers as well as consumers.