Trai pings OTT cos to form joint front against phishing, spams

New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is broadening its efforts to stop spam calls, messages and phishing by seeking cooperation from communication apps such as WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Google and Instagram.

According to officials aware of the details, the telecom regulator will soon call the app makers for a meeting during which it will discuss how these over-the-top (OTT) communication players can fit into the mechanism mandated by it to control spam and phishing. While telcos and the regulator have been working to create artificial intelligence-based solutions to check spam calls and messages over the regular terrestrial network, scammers have moved to OTT platforms such as WhatsApp.



"To curb phishing and spam, cooperation of OTT apps is required, and we have to figure out how that can be done," a senior official told ET. Trai does not intend to regulate the communication apps for this, the official said, but added that they must cooperate and work alongside telecom operators to control and check spam and phishing. Curbing the menace of spam calls and messages and phishing - fraud, mainly financial, through messaging or calls - has been one of the top priorities of Trai, which has issued various directions on that in the recent past.