The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has imposed a penalty worth Rs 1.1 billion on telecom operators for failure to curb pesky calls and financial frauds. An amount of nearly Rs 10 billion, that was siphoned off by cybercriminals, has been recovered by the government as it helped nearly 400,000 users recover their money.
As per the government, it has disconnected 5.55 million mobile connections that were acquired on fake or forged documents. This has led to the freezing of nearly 990,000 bank accounts and payment wallets.
In a reply to the Rajya Sabha, Devusinh Chauhan, Union Minister of State for Communications, informed that 280,000 mobile connections were disconnected for being involved in cybercrime or financial fraud as reported by law enforcement agencies on the National Cyber Crime reporting portal. Further, 220,000 WhatsApp accounts linked to disconnected mobile connections taken on fake documents were disengaged.
Chauhan said that several measures have been taken to protect consumers from pesky calls and spam commercial messages. He stated that TRAI has issued the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, and directions are issued from time to time. Users have the option to block commercial communications in specific categories or all of them.
