New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is planning to develop a system to help the mobile phone users identify a caller’s identity, PTI reported a top government official as saying. TRAI chairman Dr P.D. Vaghela said the consultation on the framework for this is likely to begin in a couple of months. “The mechanism will enable name-appearing on a phone screen, in accordance with KYC done by telecom companies, as per DoT norms,” he told the news agency.
This system to be powered by Know Your Customer (KYC) details will be pitched as the ruling dispensation’s replacement for the Truecaller app.
In tune with the same, the TRAI has received a reference to begin consultation from the Department of Telecom (DoT).
The mechanism, as per the TRAI, will help identify callers as per their KYC registration and bring greater accuracy and transparency than some apps that identify callers based on crowdsourced data.
Earlier, the TRAI has implemented blockchain technology to curb the problem of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) or spam calls and messages.
A KYC-based caller identification mechanism, according to experts, could safeguard the users against rising spam calls and fraud cases.
“We welcome any and all actions in the mission to make communication safe and efficient,” caller identification app Truecaller’s spokesperson said in an email statement, according to the news agency.
“Number identification is crucial to ending the menace of spam and scam calls and we, at Truecaller, have been working tirelessly towards this important mission for the past 13 years,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson further said Truecaller appreciates this move by TRAI and would like to reiterate that “we remain very supportive of this and any future initiatives they have”.