Editorial: The great Indian Spamalot

The rise of scam calls and messages has become a pressing issue, with criminals coming up with increasingly devious ways to perpetrate fraud upon smartphone users. Scammers impersonate officials from law-enforcement agencies such as the Customs, regulators like the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) or widely-used commercial services like e-commerce and logistics to trick users into compromising their mobile phone security.

Despite the cautions issued to the public by these agencies, the problem is only growing. A survey earlier this year revealed that over 30% of respondents have experienced scam calls or messages in the past year. The scams involve common themes such as fake KYC updates, impersonation of government officials, and threats of service disconnection, which can easily mislead even cautious users.

Alongside the rise of phone phishing, there has been a cancerous growth of spam and scam phone calls and messages by commercial entities. Recent statistics indicate that over 60% of mobile users receive at least three spam calls daily. A survey conducted by Local Circles among 60,000 respondents revealed that 36% of participants reported receiving three to five spam calls, while 21% indicated they get six to ten calls every day. The Do Not Disturb (DND) list has been reduced to a joke: A staggering 90% of respondents reported receiving spam calls despite being registered.

TRAI requires telecom service providers to take action against the numbers involved in fraudulent activities. However, the sheer volume and adaptability of the scammers complicate enforcement efforts. Last year, authorities blacklisted 65 telecom setups enabling fraudulent calls and disconnected 2,75,000 SIM cards but that number would be just the tip of the iceberg this year.

In response to this growing issue, telecom operators in India have only just got down to taking responsibility for solving this problem. It has taken years for them to acknowledge that providing a service includes protection of consumers from security fraud. Advanced technologies do offer solutions to combat spam and scam communications. For example, initiatives like Caller Name Presentation (CNAP) is recommended by TRAI to help users identify legitimate callers more easily. Similarly, Airtel has launched a system that accurately flags 97% of spam calls and over 99% of spam texts by analyzing user behaviour and call patterns. In the US, companies like T-Mobile and Verizon use machine learning and data analytics to identify suspicious calling patterns and alert users before they answer potentially harmful calls.

Despite these technological solutions, regulatory measures have struggled to keep pace with the surge in spam scam communications. Efforts by TRAI to make rules stricter for telemarketers have simply failed to stem the tide due to the diverse methods employed by spammers, including use of SIM cards registered under different names.

However, the fight against spam and scam calls is not solely a technological challenge but also a matter of public awareness. Much of the effort by TRAI, cybercrime agencies, service providers has been peremptory, not backed by vigorous public education campaigns to make it easier to use protective technologies and report fraud. The Department of Telecommunications initiative Chakshu, which allows users to report suspicious communications received via calls or messages, must be popularized with extensive and ubiquitous publicity campaigns.

Alongside, TRAI needs to unveil tougher measures to crack down on legit businesses that spam customers by phone. One step would be to enable phone users to sue such companies for sizeable penalties. In other words, simply make spam expensive for the spammer.