India's telecommunications regulator, Trai, has clarified that numbers in series 1600 and 140, which are designated for banking, financial, and government communications, should not be filtered, blocked, or tagged by applications.
On Series 1600 Calls
The regulator announced on Friday that according to the Telecommunications Consumers Protection Regulations (TCCCPR), numbers in series 1600 cannot be tagged, blocked, or filtered. This is because Financial, Banking, and Insurance (BFSI) organizations are required to use numbers starting with 1600 when making calls and conducting transactions.
These number series can be used by organizations regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of India (PFRDA) to communicate with existing customers. Additionally, government bodies can use this series to communicate with citizens.
In its statement, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) emphasized that one of the main objectives of assigning these special series is to ensure the trust of customers and citizens in such calls. It was explicitly stated that any attempt to tag, block, or filter calls originating from numbers in series 1600 is prohibited.
Addressing Applications and Consumer Rights
This clarification is directed at call management applications such as Truecaller and Whoscall, which tag or filter such calls. However, Trai did not name specific agencies or organizations. Nevertheless, consumers retain the right to block such numbers themselves through their phone settings.
The regulator also specified that numbers in series 140, which are intended for promotional calls from various sectors, also cannot be tagged or filtered. This requirement is also aimed at call management applications, although no specific apps were named.
Trai stated that customers have the right to allow or prohibit promotional calls coming from numbers in series 140 from any sector. This can be done by registering their preference in the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry, via the Trai DND application, or through the operators' applications or websites.
Requirements for Promotional Calls
Organizations wishing to use series 140 for promotional purposes must register with telecom operators under the TCCCPR framework and comply with all relevant regulations. The regulator added that tagging calls from series 140 is not permitted, except for blocking via the DND registry, as any tagging could mislead a customer who has previously allowed such calls from a sector in the DND registry.
Context of the Issue
These clarifications came amid requests from BFSI organizations to Trai to guarantee that calls they make to customers will not be blocked by platforms like Truecaller. Previously, on Thursday, Business Standard reported that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was considering Trai's request to be recognized as its authorized agency for regulating applications that provide caller identification and call management services.
The problem arose because banks informed Trai that calls in series 1600 were being classified as spam or were being blocked, hindering their access to consumers, even amidst ongoing discussions about creating a dedicated numbering series for easy identification of legitimate bank calls.
It is reported that Truecaller, which has a user base of 350 million people in India, approached both Trai and MeitY, pointing out that spammers were using both series 140 and 1600, negatively affecting consumers despite existing Trai rules.
