Telecommunications department warns of foreign Whatsapp calls

On Friday, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), under the Ministry of Communications issued an advisory asking people to stay alert for fraudulent calls, as per a Business Today report. The Indian government cautioned that callers were impersonating DoT officials and threatening users that their mobile numbers would be disconnected or that their numbers were being used for illegal activities. DoT also warned against accepting phone calls from foreign-origin mobile numbers like +92 (country code of Pakistan), as callers often impersonated government officials and scammed people.  Citizens can report fraudulent phone calls to the Chakshu facility of the Sanchar Saathi portal. Chakshu is a recently released service that allows citizens to report spam phone calls and messages. At the same time, the government also released a Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), which allows for real-time intelligence sharing, information exchange, and coordination among telecom companies, law enforcement agencies, banks, financial institutions (FIs), social media platforms, and identity document issuing authorities.  The government of India has been cracking down on spam messages and fraudulent calls over the last year. The Telecommunications Act 2023, allowed the government to enact measures to curb spam, including a reporting mechanism and a Do Not Disturb (DND) list. Also, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has mandated the use of AI/ML filters for weeding out spam calls.   Whatsapp has seen a rise in fraudulent phone calls, many from foreign numbers. At that time, WhatsApp told Medianama, “We work diligently to try to reduce any spam messages that come…