TRAI has issued new rules to curb spam calls and harassing commercial calls. Now if the AI or Machine Learning based system of a telecom company flags a call coming from a number as ‘Suspected Spam’, then there will be no need to wait for the customer’s complaint to take action. TRAI has issued Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2026.
What will happen if spam call is detected by AI? Under the new rules, any telecom company that receives a call suspected as spam will have to share the information about that call within two hours with the operator from whose network the call originated.
After this, the Originating Access Provider i.e. OAP will have to find out the KYC identifier of the Sender associated with that number within one business day. After this, other telecom operators will also check their systems to see if other connections related to the same suspicious sender have been found in the last 10 days.
If five or more CLI i.e. Calling Line Identification numbers of the sender are found suspicious in the last 10 days, then the concerned telecom companies will have to take action against them.
Outgoing stopped for 15 days on first mistake
If the violation is detected for the first time through the AI system, then the outgoing service of all the telecom resources of the sender can be stopped for 15 days. This will also include those connections which were not used for that spam communication.
If there is a repeat violation, all telecom resources of the sender, such as SIM, PRI and SIP trunk etc. may be disconnected for one year. During this period the sender will also be blacklisted and new telecom resources will not be given. In serious cases, a complaint can also be made to law enforcement agencies.
New rule on apps like Truecaller too
According to TRAI’s new rules, call management apps or such services will not be allowed to automatically tag, block or filter calls coming from numbers starting with the authority’s prescribed number series, such as 160. However, users will be able to block or filter any call as per their need on their device.
New way to end promotional calls
Customers who want to block telemarketing calls of all categories will have to SMS BLOCK PROMO to 1909. This will block promotional commercial communications, but transactions, services and government communications will not be affected.
According to TRAI, the preferences already registered in FULLY BLOCK category will be migrated to BLOCK PROMO category within 15 days of the notification. The new rules will be implemented in stages, the process of which will be completed between 30 to 90 days after notification.
