Bharti Airtel has urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to expand its regulatory framework to include over-the-top (OTT) communication platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram to combat rising spam and fraud. In a letter to TRAI, Airtel’s vice-chairman and managing director, Gopal Vittal, proposed several measures to regulate OTT platforms, including extending digital consent acquisition to these platforms, enforcing Know Your Customer (KYC) verification for users, and integrating them into a centralized spam blacklist system.
Vittal noted that while TRAI’s anti-spam regulations have significantly reduced spam and unsolicited commercial communication over SMS and voice, fraudsters are increasingly shifting to OTT platforms, which operate with minimal oversight. Telecom operators, including Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, have raised concerns that TRAI’s spam-control measures do not address the root of the problem, which is the lack of regulation of OTT platforms.
The industry has called for the inclusion of OTT services under the regulatory framework, citing the risks of phishing, fraud, and security breaches. Telecom operators have also voiced their discontent over the hefty fines imposed for non-compliance with the new spam regulations, which can result in penalties of up to Rs 10 lakh for repeated offenses and even service suspensions.
Airtel has also called for global standards to prevent calling line identification (CLI) spoofing, a common tactic used to manipulate caller IDs. TRAI officials have clarified that the regulation of OTT platforms falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which has been notified of the telecom sector’s concerns.