The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is pushing for wider use of artificial intelligence to identify suspected spam calls and has sought legal powers to act against call-management applications that do not comply with its spam regulations, TRAI Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti said in an interview with CNBC-TV18. Lahoti, however, said the regulator hopes legal action against such apps will not be necessary, as TRAI remains in dialogue with the companies.“The reference arose in order to determine what action could be taken if the necessity arises to take legal action in case a call-management application is non-compliant,” Lahoti said. The matter is currently under consideration by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology , he added.“I hope that necessity does not arise. We are in constructive dialogue, and we hope to resolve it without that,” Lahoti said.

The comments come amid a dispute over how third-party caller-identification and call-management services should treat calls originating from numbers designated by TRAI for specific purposes.TRAI says 1600, 140 series should not be flagged as spamTRAI has mandated specific number series for different categories of calls. The 1600 series is meant for service and transaction-related calls from the banking, financial services and insurance sector, while the 140 series is used for regulated promotional calls. Lahoti said these numbers should not be flagged as spam through crowdsourced systems because doing so could result in genuine and important calls being missed.“If any of these numbers are flagged as spam by a set ofrs for any reason, anotherr for whom the call may be important could receive that call with a spam flag,” he said.

“Therefore, it is important that these regulated series... should not be flagged by crowdsourced means as spam.”Importantly, the restriction does not extend to regular 10-digit numbers. TRAI continues to allow such numbers to be flagged as spam, with Lahoti identifying their misuse as a key part of the problem.“There is no restriction on flagging other numbers—the routine 10-digit numbers which are frequently used for spamming,” he said.TRAI turns to AI to identify spamLahoti said AI-based systems are already being deployed by all three major telecom service providers to detect suspected spam. According to him, the systems analyse calling patterns and other behavioural parameters associated with spammers, allowing operators to warnrs that an incoming call may be suspicious.“They are detecting potential spam by analysing calling patterns, because spammers have several behavioural patterns,” Lahoti said.TRAI has also recommended that the government enable Calling Name Presentation , which would allow the KYC-ed name associated with a number to be displayed when a call comes from someone outside a user's contact list.

Lahoti said some operators have already started deploying the system. The regulator is also relying on consumer complaints to strengthen enforcement. Lahoti said spam reports provide evidence against suspected spammers and urged users to report unwanted calls through TRAI's DND app.“The more spam reports we receive, the more action we can take against spammers,” he said.

The TRAI chairman said the regulator's broader approach is to combine technology-led detection with stricter enforcement, while ensuring that calls from regulated number series are not incorrectly treated as spam. Central Vista library row: SC gives Centre 3 weeks to submit detailed reply on space for 8.5 lakh books