India's TRAI Orders Truecaller to Share Spam Reports With Telcos

India's telecom regulator amended its commercial communications rules on Friday, requiring caller-ID and call-management apps to hand their user-generated spam reports to the telecom industry's blockchain platform. TechCrunch reported that the mandate applies to any app that lets users flag calls as junk. Truecaller, which counts India as its largest market with over 350 million users, is the biggest name in scope.

Truecaller called it a "one-way exchange" that is "anti-competitive." A company spokesperson said the rule "transfers commercially valuable data from call-management apps like itself to telecom operators." The company noted that Indian users experienced approximately 42 billion spam calls in 2025, with Truecaller blocking nearly 12 billion of those.

The same package classifies AI-generated and automated calls as application-to-person traffic requiring advance operator notification, with telecom operators allowed to charge up to 5 paise per minute on such calls. LatestLY reported that TRAI issued 7.31 lakh notices to unregistered telemarketers and disconnected 1.84 lakh mobile numbers last year.

Policy experts told TechCrunch the amendments don't clarify what specific information apps must transmit, whether user consent applies, or enforcement mechanisms beyond potential IT law provisions mentioned in draft guidance. The package also retains an exemption preventing apps from blocking or spam-tagging calls from certain government-designated number ranges.