Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has undertaken following steps to prevent misuse of telecom resources for cybercrimes and financial frauds:
- Development of citizen centric Sanchar Saathi portal and mobile App with various facilities including reporting of suspected fraud communications.
- Development of online secure Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) for sharing of information related to misuse of telecom resources among the stakeholders.
- Development of a system in collaboration with Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to identify and block incoming international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers that appear to be originating within India.
DoT has undertaken following measures to act against the issue of misuse of mobile connections:
- Development of AI based tool to identify the suspected mobile connections taken on fake documents. 78 lakh such mobile connections have been disconnected after reverification.
- Policy instructions for re-verification of existing mobile connections identified by DoT/ TSPs/ Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs).
- Mandated telecom licensees to register their Point of Sale (PoS) {Franchisee, Distributors & Agents}, who enroll customers and issue SIMs on their behalf.
- Biometric verification, physical verification of address of place of business & local residence of PoS. Further, police verification of PoS in J&K, Assam & North East License Service Areas (LSAs).
- Blacklisting of PoS across all the TSPs if documents/ information given by PoS is false/ forged & on the directions of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs)/ Licensed Service Areas (LSAs).
- Robust Know Your Customer (KYC) process for SIM Swap/ replacement.
- Discontinuation of paper based KYC process.
- Monthly audit on sample basis for the SIM cards issued by TSPs for compliance of guidelines.
