By Akshit Chawla
What’s the news? The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will release a caller identification system based on Know Your Customer details (KYC) for users within the next three weeks, said P D Vaghela, Chairman, TRAI, according to a Livemint report dated November 17th.
TRAI’s interest in creating this Truecaller-like feature has been reported by Medianama and other news organisations multiple times in the past but this is the first time that TRAI has given a date within which it will come up with this system. Vaghela also told HT that TRAI has conducted several stakeholder consultations to iron out the issues with the caller ID system.
This step is in line with the draft telecommunication bill 2022 The draft telecommunication bill 2022 said certain licensed entities “shall unequivocally identify the person to whom it provides services, through a verifiable mode of identification as may be prescribed”. An explanatory note released with the bill also mentioned that “Every telecom user wishes to know who is calling. This will help in preventing cyber-frauds done using telecom services”. Why it matters: Enabling KYC-based caller identification would lead to privacy and security concerns as well. It will make it hard or impossible to make anonymous calls depending on how the rules and enforcement for this are framed. Calling any third person would reveal the name of the caller, which can you used to find their identity using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
