India expands anti-spam rules for caller-ID apps and automated calls
India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has amended its commercial-communications rules to require caller-ID and call-management apps to send user spam reports to a blockchain-based anti-spam platform maintained by telecom operators. The changes also bring automatically initiated calls, including robocalls and calls using prerecorded or artificial voices, within the country’s application-to-person (A2P) framework.
The new reporting requirement affects apps that allow people to flag a call as spam or junk. TRAI said the measure will expand the reports available to the telecom industry’s enforcement system, connecting app-collected signals with the infrastructure used to track commercial communications and act against spammers.
Truecaller challenges the reporting requirement
Truecaller described the measure as a “one-way exchange” and anti-competitive. The Stockholm-based company argues that it would transfer commercially valuable data from call-management apps to telecom operators. India is Truecaller’s largest market, representing well over 350 million of its more than 500 million monthly active users worldwide.
The company combines community reports, automated detection and other signals to identify and block suspicious calls. In its February report, Truecaller said users in India encountered around 42 billion spam calls in 2025, counting calls blocked, labelled or ignored. It also said it blocked nearly 12 billion spam calls during that year.
The amendments retain restrictions on applications automatically labelling designated number ranges as spam. Those ranges are used for promotional, service and transactional communications. Apps are also barred from blanket blocking, filtering or spam-tagging calls from those series, although individuals may still block them on their own devices.
Questions over data scope and enforcement
Sumeysh Srivastava, a partner at The Quantum Hub, said the rules join two layers of the communications ecosystem: operators run the underlying network and blockchain-based anti-spam system, while caller-ID apps identify and filter calls above the network layer. He highlighted unanswered questions over reporting standards and enforcement against companies that are not telecom operators.
A March draft proposed using India’s IT laws to enforce the obligation, but the final announcement did not specify whether that mechanism remains. Kazim Rizvi, founding director of The Dialogue, said sending an individual user’s spam report differs materially from sharing wider datasets, reputation signals or analytical systems. He said the rules need clarity on the information that must be sent, how users are notified or asked for consent, and how the data may be retained and used.
Automated and AI voice calls enter A2P rules
TRAI will treat calls made automatically, without a person directly dialling the number, as A2P traffic. This includes robocalls and calls with prerecorded or artificial voices. Businesses using these systems must declare both their use and the relevant phone numbers to telecom operators in advance; undeclared A2P calls will be considered spam.
The regulator’s approach focuses on how a call is initiated rather than solely on whether it uses an AI-generated voice. Satya N. Gupta, a former additional secretary at TRAI, said the rules do not prohibit AI or automated calling, but require businesses to disclose their use to operators. Operators may charge up to 5 paise per minute to terminate A2P calls, with exemptions for certain designated number ranges.
For businesses, the immediate task is to map automated calling, contact-centre and click-to-call workflows, confirm which numbers are used, and establish a process for the required operator declarations before those calls are treated as spam.