Truecaller is in conflict with India’s telecom regulator over anti-spam laws

Truecaller has launched a civil war with India’s telecoms regulator over rules governing caller ID apps, saying the country’s anti-spam framework makes it difficult to protect consumers from unwanted calls in its biggest market.

On Wednesday, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala (pictured above) took to X to publicly challenge the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), accusing the watchdog of preventing Truecaller from revealing publicly reported spam data on calls from the country’s dedicated 1400 and 1600 series numbers, a restriction he said undermined business confidence.

The dispute stems from a framework introduced in 2024 in which India’s telecommunications authorities designated the 1400 and 1600 series of numbers for commercial communications, with businesses using the former for telemarketing calls and the latter for service-related and transactional calls. TRAI later approved the move to a dedicated number chain, saying the move would help consumers identify legitimate business communications and prevent spam and scam calls.

The framework was launched amid growing concerns about spam calls and scams in India, one of the world’s largest telecom markets, where regulators and telecom operators have rolled out a number of measures to curb fraudulent communications. Last year, India’s Ministry of Communications said authorities had blocked more than 2.1 million fake mobile phone numbers and taken action against more than 100,000 organizations in the previous year, underscoring the scale of the challenge.

Jhunjhunwala said the policy produced unintended consequences. Citing internal company data, he said consumers have lost trust in the designated number series, with Truecaller users rejecting 81% of calls from the 1400 series and 79% from the 1600 series in the past eight months. At the same time, users have manually blocked 74 million calls from a series of two numbers, and daily blocking actions against 1600 series numbers have tripled since October 2025, he said.

Unable to mark those numbers as spam, Truecaller has instead introduced a “Frequently Banned” badge to notify users if a selected string number has been blocked by many people.

The rare public criticism came after Indian business daily Economic Times reported that TRAI had sought powers under India’s Information Technology Act to take action against caller ID apps like Truecaller, Hiya, and Whoscall for labeling 1400 and 1600 series numbers as spam.

TRAI and India’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which would scrutinize any such proposal, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The dispute comes at an important time for Truecaller, whose driver ID business has been facing increasing regulatory and competitive pressures as the company pushes for new products and services. India remains the largest market in terms of overall numbers, with more than 350 million active users of which 500 million are based in the country, according to the company.

Jhunjhunwala said Truecaller will share its data with India’s IT ministry as part of the regulatory process, saying any decision on caller ID apps should be based on evidence.

He wrote: “Enjoy the bad actors, not the ones like Truecaller who make a positive impact.