New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is considering a proposal to allow action against calls and messages flagged as “potential or suspected spam” by artificial intelligence-based systems deployed by telecom operators, even in the absence of a formal consumer complaint, officials said.
Trai is currently in discussions with industry stakeholders to strengthen the existing anti-spam framework. At present, telecom operators initiate action against a suspected spammer only after receiving at least five unique complaints against a number within a 10-day period. Under the proposal being examined, action such as disconnection of a mobile number could also be triggered if an AI-driven system consistently flags a number as potential spam for 10 consecutive days, regardless of whether any complaint has been lodged.
Officials said the move is aimed at improving response times against large-scale spam and scam operations. However, it could also have unintended consequences for gig workers, delivery agents and other high-frequency callers, whose legitimate calls are often incorrectly identified as suspected spam by AI systems.
As of now, there is no statutory definition to classify unsolicited communication as spam. Telecom operators rely on AI algorithms that analyse parameters such as call and message frequency, usage patterns and duration in real time to identify suspected spam. These alerts are currently meant only to warn consumers, leaving the decision to accept or reject a call to the user.
According to officials, telcos flag between 300 million and 400 million calls and messages as suspected spam every month, while the actual volume of complaints is far lower, averaging about 10,000 per day. Data shared by Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia in Parliament last week showed that telcos received 334,317 spam complaints in December 2025, compared with 116,213 in February 2025. Most complaints were against unregistered telemarketers using regular 10-digit mobile numbers.
