Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has stated to display the Legal Name of customers who are calling to anyone by the service providers. It has stated the name should be displayed as per the KYC document when the user opts for the service.
However, few say this will impact the privacy of the user if the same name of the KYC document is displayed. The TRAI has been trying for the feature for the past 2-3 years and has been looking for an automatic adaptability feature. We have detailed about the feature that might come into your mobile phones soon.
Calling Name Presentation:
In the latest and final announcement of TRAI, it has been recommended again to look after displaying the legal name of users who call. It has been reported to adapt for Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) where the service provider will have to display the caller’s name as per the KYC registration document.
This time the TRAI is one step ahead of its previous announcements because the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) had sought out the inputs from TRAI regarding the CNAP. The first proposal for this Caller Identification (CI) was introduced nearly 2 years back and now the final recommendations have been proposed. It has stated the telecom networks should provide the CNAP as a supplementary service at the customer’s request.
How Calling Name Presentation Is Implemented:
The TRAI recommended government issue the orders to start the service at a certain time and highlighted the use of the Caller Identification feature “CNAP”. The TRAI said the recommended CNAP model will display the name on which the number was registered with the telecom operator when the phone call is received.
CNAP Privacy Issue:
This service will be activated only upon customers’ request and any user cannot have the option to opt out of the CNAP feature, even if they don’t like to display their name on others’ phones when called. This recommendation has raised concerns regarding privacy and their names being used for misleading purposes like theft and spam. Also, the TRAI came up with an option to edit their names with proper reason for an edit that will be displayed when they call others.
Trai Background Work:
DoT proposed the introduction of the Caller Identification feature in March 2022 and completed the paperwork regarding the same in November 2022. The consultation for this caller identification was held in March 2023 and the final recommendations are released now.
This CNAP feature from TRAI will be set as default once introduced and opted for service. The telecom companies raised concerns regarding sharing their names which come under personal data to third parties (whoever they call), which need the user’s consent to display the names. So as per the data sharing policy, the user must accept the CNAP to display his/her name on others’ phones when called.
End Of Truecaller:
Once introduced and implemented this feature becomes rival to the most widely used app called “Truecaller”.
Truecaller has a paid subscription which includes premium features like editing location, pictures, and names. One can change everything and can mislead the genuine information related to a user. Truecaller has been the most widely used app for caller identification and detecting spam calls.
Although CNAP has a feature of displaying only names this will affect the truecaller user base because of CNAP genuine information through KYC.
Conclusion:
The only concern is what if users don’t show interest in accepting the data sharing policy to a third party? The telecom operators don’t have any right to display their names on third-party mobiles without proper consent from their users.
Then CNAP will be scrapped and need to go a long way if TRAI needs its implementation by a third party. Though it provides an option to edit names for a purpose then everyone chooses to edit and might edit names incorrectly.
TRAI should make necessary changes regarding the data sharing so that all users will be flexible to accept the same and CNAP can be implemented without further issues. As of now, TRAI is looking to issue orders to telecom operators regarding CNAP so we have to wait and see how telecom operators react to orders from the government.
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