Warning: Your OTPs Could Vanish After November 30 if Jio, Airtel, Vi Miss TRAI’s Deadline!

New Delhi(The Uttam Hindu): Indian telecom operators, which include Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea (Vi), and BSNL, will undergo crucial changes in the management of One-Time Passwords (OTPs) and other commercial messages due to growing complaints about spam, phishing and fraud. From December 1, 2024, these service providers will need to abide by the new rules set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) known as Traceability Rules. These regulations will oblige telecom companies to track the source of all OTPs and commercial messages, making it easier to identify and track messages coming from unknown or suspicious sources.

These regulations have been introduced directly in response to the increasing occurrence of spam and fraud within the mobile messaging landscape. The increased counterfeit OTP, phishing scheme, and unsolicited commercial messages have raised enormous concerns for users, bringing about tighter measures on how traceable messages are from their origin. The new rules will give authorities the capability to track any fraudulent or spam messages back to their origin, complicating efforts by those committing frauds on exploiting the system.

While these changes are expected to improve security for mobile users over time, users will likely experience sporadic shutdowns of OTPs and transactional messages while telecom operators enforce the new compliance mechanism. Commercial and promotional SMS also face increased scrutiny, with advanced features for identification and verification of senders. Telecom operators would now be mandated to ensure that only authenticated senders would be allowed to send business or transactional messages, which would help in reining in the increasing menace of unsolicited spam and scammers. The new regulations are an integral part of the vast initiative of TRAI aimed at securing mobile communications and preventing fraudsters from easily tampering or spoofing OTPs for malicious intent. As these regulations begin to affect users, there is the potential for disruption at first, but ultimately, users can be assured of a more secure and transparent messaging experience.