Blockchain didn’t end spam in India, regulator now trying AI • The Register

India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) has announced a new crackdown on TXT spam – this time using artificial intelligence, after an earlier blockchain-powered effort produced mixed results.

TRAI’s approach to dealing with spam – or unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) as it prefers to describe it – led the regulator to create a mandatory register of telemarketers and telecom service providers, requiring them to secure opt-ins from message recipients. A blockchain-powered application recorded the details of over 250,000 principals conducting telemarketing activities, plus the message headers and message templates they use.

Although that app did not always work as planned, TRAI stated yesterday [PDF] the latest effort reduced customer complaints at UCC by 60 percent, within India’s borders.

However, complaints persist because many unregistered telemarketers have not registered with the regulator’s app. These rapscallions continue to send spam and make unwanted phone calls.

TRAI’s response is new initiatives aimed at tracking the activity of scofflaw telemarketers.

“These steps include: implementation of UCC detection system, provision of digital consent collection, intelligent scrubbing of headers and message templates, use of AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine language), etc.,” the regulator announced.

TRAI has also formed a “Joint Committee of Regulators” which will see it join hands with the Reserve Bank of India, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the Securities & Exchanges Board of India to tackle the financial damage caused by the UCC.

Hundreds of millions of spam messages reach Indian residents every day, with scammers targeting SMS, messaging services such as WhatsApp and voice services.

Spam-blocking tool Truecaller has identified a single Indian phone spammer who made 202 million calls in 2021 alone.

Lots of spam TXTs and calls also originate from India – or appear to – and appear outside the country as a contact from someone with a +91 prefix on their phone number.

Estimates of the revenue from fraud delivered using spam TXTs and calls regularly reach several billion. The bad guys have a ton of incentive to keep being bad. Regulators across the globe will no doubt be eyeing TRAI’s AI-powered efforts to target unregulated telcos. And hope they succeed. ®