India’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has directed telecom service providers, including Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and BSNL, to test a new SMS spam-blocking solution. The trial period will last for 3 months, with a review scheduled during February. The directive follows increasing concerns over spam and fraud facilitated by misleading SMS headers.
Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL), a state-owned company, will provide the anti-spam tool at no cost for the trial period. TCIL is supervised by the government’s Department of Telecommunications. The new tool was developed in cooperation with commercial partners. According to officials:
TCIL agreed to provide the tool for a three-month trial at no cost to all TSPs and principal entities (PE), allowing to use the tool and assess the system’s efficiency and accuracy.
A real-time demonstration of the TCIL tool had already been performed on January 20, when it was used to filter fraudulent messages on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP). The solution was built upon blockchain and artificial intelligence technology. TCIL stated that it could be deployed immediately, giving telecom carriers full control over SMS tracking.
A proof-of-concept (PoC) for using the tool to block spam voice calls has also been performed on the network of MTNL, a state-owned telco that serves the metro areas of Mumbai and Delhi and the island of Mauritius.
India has been following a distinctive strategy for preventing spam and scam communications that makes extensive use of home-grown technology. The subcontinent is home to some of the world’s largest telcos by subscriber numbers, giving them the opportunity to demonstrate how well new technologies perform at scale within a multilingual environment. Rising levels of spam and scam communications around the world have given rise to lucrative opportunities for international businesses that promise to use AI and other technologies to automatically block communications. However, there always remains the risk that legitimate communications could be blocked as well. Other countries should pay attention to developments in India. If India’s public-private sector partnerships continue to deliver innovative ways to reduce scam and spam communications then they will inevitably become a force in the global marketplace, helping to improve the efficacy whilst driving down the cost of future solutions.
Communications Today provides more information about the trial here.
