Big Tech cries foul over new phone verification rules
new delhi, July 31 -- India's proposed new cybersecurity rules under the Telecom Act threaten to pull everyday apps such as WhatsApp, Netflix, and Amazon under the country's telecom regulations-just because they use phone numbers. The proposal, aimed at boosting cybersecurity, has sparked alarm among the global tech giants over user privacy, hefty compliance costs, and the overall future of India's digital economy, and they have written to the government expressing their anguish.
The proposed rules also call for inclusion of other key services such as online banking, shopping, education, and even physical stores, under the law for their use of telecom identifiers like mobile numbers, to identify or interact with users.
Simply put, almost every digital service today-from chatting on WhatsApp to shopping on Amazon-uses telecom identifiers such as phone numbers to log users in, send one-time passwords, or deliver notifications.
The department of telecommunications (DoT) had floated the draft rules on 24 June and had invited comments on the same till 23 July. The government is currently evaluating the feedback. Under the draft rules, these companies need to verify that the phone numbers their users give actually belong to them, and that would entail a cost burden. The verification will have to be done by checking those numbers against telecom databases upon government direction or by using a government-owned mobile number validation platform at a fee. The objective of the Telecommunication Act, 2023 (Telecom Act) and the provisions under which these rules have been promulgated is to "protect and ensure the cyber security of telecommunication networks and telecommunication services". The Draft Amendment Rules, instead of advancing this objective of cyber security, extend the scope of the law by seeking to regulate a class of entities that lie entirely outside the Parent Act framework," said Broadband India Forum in its submission to the DoT. A copy of the submission was seen by Mint. The Broadband India Forum, which represents big tech companies in the country, says the expansion of scope to non-telecom entities and OTTs goes against what the then communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said in 2023-that these apps are not within the Telecom Act's ambit and remain governed by the Information Technology Act, 2000. Even as the government intends to curb cybercrime and identity theft through the new rules, the big tech companies see this move as a backdoor attempt to bring them under the Telecom Act, a long-running and controversial issue between telecom and tech companies. Telecom operators have been lobbying the government to bring OTT apps under a comparable regulatory framework, claiming it would level the playing field and ensure fair competition. Tech firms argue that this would stifle innovation, impose disproportionate compliance costs, and create overlapping legal frameworks....
To read the full article or to get the complete feed from this publication, please
Contact Us.