India forces caller-ID apps to feed spam reports to telcos
India forces caller-ID apps to feed spam reports to telcos
印度强制要求来电识别应用向电信运营商提供垃圾信息举报数据
India has extended its anti-spam regime to require caller-ID and call-management apps to share users’ spam reports with telecom operators, prompting spam-blocking app maker Truecaller to call the ruling anti-competitive. 印度已扩大其反垃圾信息监管范围，要求来电识别和通话管理应用必须与电信运营商共享用户的垃圾信息举报数据。此举引发了垃圾信息拦截应用开发商 Truecaller 的不满，称该规定具有反竞争性。
On Friday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the country’s telecom regulator, amended rules governing commercial communications, making it mandatory for caller-ID and call-management apps that let users flag calls as spam or junk to send those reports to a blockchain-based platform maintained by telecom operators. The platform tracks commercial communications and enforces anti-spam rules. 上周五，印度电信监管局（TRAI）修订了商业通信管理规则，强制要求那些允许用户将通话标记为垃圾信息或骚扰电话的来电识别及通话管理应用，必须将这些举报信息发送至由电信运营商维护的区块链平台。该平台负责追踪商业通信并执行反垃圾信息规则。
The change, TRAI said, is intended to broaden the pool of spam reports available for action against spammers, effectively connecting reports collected by apps with the telecom industry’s enforcement infrastructure. However, Truecaller told TechCrunch that it sees this requirement as a “one-way exchange” that is “anti-competitive,” arguing that it transfers commercially valuable data from call-management apps like itself to telecom operators. TRAI 表示，此举旨在扩大针对垃圾信息发送者的举报数据池，将应用收集的举报信息与电信行业的执法基础设施有效连接起来。然而，Truecaller 向 TechCrunch 表示，它认为这一要求是“单向交换”，具有“反竞争性”，并指出这实际上是将像它这样的通话管理应用所拥有的商业价值数据转移给了电信运营商。
India is Truecaller’s largest market, accounting for well over 350 million of its more than 500 million monthly active users globally. The Stockholm-based company uses community reports alongside automated detection and other signals to identify and block spam calls. 印度是 Truecaller 最大的市场，其全球超过 5 亿的月活跃用户中，有超过 3.5 亿来自印度。这家总部位于斯德哥尔摩的公司利用社区举报、自动检测及其他信号来识别和拦截垃圾电话。
The rules come as India grapples with spam and fraudulent calls at enormous scale. In its report in February, Truecaller said its users in the country encountered around 42 billion spam calls in 2025, including calls that were blocked, labeled, or ignored. The company also stated that it blocked nearly 12 billion spam calls during the year. 出台这些规则之际，印度正面临大规模的垃圾电话和诈骗电话困扰。Truecaller 在 2 月份的报告中称，其印度用户在 2025 年遭遇了约 420 亿次垃圾电话（包括被拦截、标记或忽略的电话）。该公司还表示，在这一年里，它拦截了近 120 亿次垃圾电话。
It is not the first time Truecaller and the Indian regulator have been at odds over how spam calls should be handled. The Swedish company previously objected to restrictions preventing call-management apps from automatically labeling calls from certain government-designated number ranges as spam. It argued that the exemption could allow unwanted calls to escape its filters. 这并非 Truecaller 与印度监管机构首次在垃圾电话处理方式上产生分歧。此前，这家瑞典公司曾反对相关限制，即禁止通话管理应用自动将政府指定的某些号段的来电标记为垃圾信息。该公司认为，这种豁免可能导致骚扰电话逃过其过滤系统。
However, Friday’s amendments retain that restriction and have barred call-management apps from blanket blocking, filtering, or spam-tagging calls from designated number series used for promotional, service, and transactional communications. Individual users can still choose to block such calls on their own devices, the regulator said. 然而，周五的修订案保留了这一限制，并禁止通话管理应用对用于促销、服务和交易通信的指定号段进行全面拦截、过滤或标记。监管机构表示，个人用户仍可选择在自己的设备上拦截此类电话。
“While our data and user sentiment clearly show that spam has skyrocketed due to this free pass to spammers, we have been compliant with this since late last year,” a Truecaller spokesperson said. Truecaller 发言人表示：“尽管我们的数据和用户反馈清楚地表明，由于给予垃圾信息发送者这种‘通行证’，垃圾信息数量已大幅飙升，但我们自去年年底以来一直遵守这一规定。”
Sumeysh Srivastava, a partner at New Delhi-based consulting firm The Quantum Hub, who leads its telecom-regulation policy work, said the latest change bridges two distinct layers: Telecom operators provide the underlying network and run the blockchain-based anti-spam system, while caller-ID apps operate on top of the network to identify and filter calls. 新德里咨询公司 The Quantum Hub 的合伙人、负责电信监管政策工作的 Sumeysh Srivastava 表示，最新的变化连接了两个不同的层面：电信运营商提供底层网络并运行基于区块链的反垃圾信息系统，而来电识别应用则在网络之上运行，负责识别和过滤通话。
That raises technical and jurisdictional questions, Srivastava told TechCrunch, including what reporting standards apps will have to follow and how the requirement will be enforced against companies that are not themselves telecom operators. A March draft proposed (PDF) using India’s IT laws to enforce the requirement. However, Srivastava pointed out that the new announcement did not say whether that enforcement mechanism was retained in the final rules. Srivastava 对 TechCrunch 表示，这引发了技术和管辖权方面的问题，包括应用必须遵循什么样的举报标准，以及如何对非电信运营商的公司执行这一要求。3 月份的一份草案（PDF）曾提议利用印度的 IT 法律来执行该要求。然而，Srivastava 指出，新的公告并未说明该执行机制是否被保留在最终规则中。
It is also unclear how much information the apps will actually have to provide under the updated regulation. Kazim Rizvi, founding director of New Delhi-based policy think tank The Dialogue, told TechCrunch that requiring an app to transmit a specific spam report made by a user is materially different from requiring it to share the broader datasets, reputation signals, or analytical systems it uses to identify suspicious calls. 目前尚不清楚在更新后的法规下，应用实际上需要提供多少信息。新德里政策智库 The Dialogue 的创始主任 Kazim Rizvi 向 TechCrunch 表示，要求应用传输用户做出的特定垃圾信息举报，与要求其共享用于识别可疑电话的更广泛数据集、信誉信号或分析系统，在本质上是不同的。
The rules will need clarity on what information must be transmitted, how users are notified or asked for consent, and how that data can subsequently be retained and used, Rizvi said. TRAI did not respond to TechCrunch’s questions about what information apps would be required to share and whether the rule would also apply to spam-reporting features built into smartphone operating systems and dialers such as Android and iOS. Rizvi 认为，这些规则需要明确哪些信息必须传输、如何通知用户或征求用户同意，以及这些数据后续如何保存和使用。对于应用需要共享哪些信息，以及该规则是否也适用于 Android 和 iOS 等智能手机操作系统及拨号器内置的垃圾信息举报功能，TRAI 并未回应 TechCrunch 的置评请求。
New rules for AI-powered calls
针对人工智能通话的新规
The amendments also address the growing use of software and AI voice agents to make calls. Calls made automatically, without a person directly dialing the number, will now fall under TRAI’s application-to-person (A2P) framework. That includes robocalls and calls using prerecorded or artificial voices. 此次修订还针对日益增长的利用软件和人工智能语音代理拨打电话的行为进行了规范。凡是自动拨打、无需人工直接拨号的通话，现在都将纳入 TRAI 的“应用对人”（A2P）框架。这包括机器人电话以及使用预录音或人工智能语音的通话。
Companies using such systems will have to declare their use and the phone numbers involved to their telecom operators in advance. Undeclared A2P calls will be treated as spam, TRAI said. TRAI 表示，使用此类系统的公司必须提前向其电信运营商申报使用情况及相关电话号码。未申报的 A2P 通话将被视为垃圾信息。
The key test, Srivastava said, is how a call is initiated, rather than simply whether it uses an AI-generated voice, leaving some uncertainty around AI-assisted calls that involve human initiation. Srivastava 指出，关键的判断标准在于通话是如何发起的，而不仅仅是是否使用了人工智能生成的语音，这使得涉及人工发起的人工智能辅助通话仍存在一些不确定性。
Satya N. Gupta, a former additional secretary at TRAI, told TechCrunch that the new rules do not restrict businesses from using AI or other automated calling technologies, but instead require them to disclose their use to telecom operators. Telecom operators will also be allowed to levy a termination charge of up to 5 paise (about 0.052 cents) per minute on A2P calls. However, calls made using certain designated number ranges will be exempt. 曾任 TRAI 额外秘书的 Satya N. Gupta 向 TechCrunch 表示，新规并未限制企业使用人工智能或其他自动呼叫技术，而是要求它们向电信运营商披露其使用情况。电信运营商还将获准对 A2P 通话收取每分钟最高 5 派士（约 0.052 美分）的终止费。不过，使用某些指定号段拨打的电话将获得豁免。
Rizvi told TechCrunch that the new definition could also cover calls made using software even when a person is still involved, such as calls from contact centers and click-to-call services. “Without that distinction, the A2P category risks becoming broader than the regulatory harm it is intended to address,” he said. Rizvi 对 TechCrunch 表示，新的定义可能还会涵盖即使有人参与但仍使用软件拨打的电话，例如呼叫中心和“点击通话”服务拨出的电话。“如果没有这种区分，A2P 类别可能会变得过于宽泛，超出了其旨在解决的监管问题范围，”他说。