Airtel seeks industry-wide alliance with Jio, VIL to combat telecom scams

Bharti Airtel has reached out to Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (VIL) with a proposal for a joint industry initiative to combat the rising menace of telecom fraud and scams, the company has informed the government and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).In separate communications to the telecom firms, Airtel highlighted alarming data showing that India recorded over 1.7 million cybercrime complaints in the first nine months of 2024, with reported financial losses exceeding Rs 11,000 crore.Urging all telecom operators to collaborate, Airtel stressed the importance of unified industry efforts to protect vulnerable individuals from increasingly deceptive digital scams, PTI reported. The company has already implemented a fraud detection solution aimed at blocking rogue websites on communication and social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, and Instagram.“However, given the recent alarming rise in phishing attempts and malicious URL-based scams targeting unsuspecting individuals, it became evident that more coordinated industry action was needed. These sophisticated fraud schemes often exploit the gaps in coordination between service providers,” Airtel said in letters to Telecom Secretary Neeraj Mittal and Trai Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti.Updating both the telecom department and Trai on its ongoing measures, Airtel said it has once again reached out to other Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) with a proposal to launch a Joint Telecom Fraud Initiative on May 14, 2025.“This initiative would bring together all TSPs to collaboratively detect, prevent, and mitigate telecom fraud and scams across our networks through real-time fraud intelligence sharing and cross-network coordination,” the letter stated.Airtel also recalled its earlier appeal made in October 2024, where it had written to all TSPs proposing a collaborative approach to tackle the growing issue of Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC).That proposal suggested mutual sharing of corporate connection details used for commercial calling, in a standardised format, to proactively monitor spam and prevent misuse. It also included the idea of creating a centralised data-sharing platform similar to the existing Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) system to combat UCC effectively without hampering legitimate enterprise services.Meanwhile, Airtel Vice Chairman and Managing Director Gopal Vittal is expected to soon reach out directly to customers via email to raise awareness about financial frauds and scams, which he described as “a regular threat for Indians.”Sources said Vittal’s message will detail Airtel’s ongoing initiatives, including the AI-powered spam detection solution launched last year, and new tools to detect suspicious links across OTT platforms, social media, and messaging apps, and block them in real time.Vittal warned that scam tactics have evolved and become more organised and dangerous over the past year.“Fraudsters today are targeting people not just through calls and texts but also through chats, emails, social media apps and other platforms,” he said.He cautioned that scammers often impersonate banks, utility services, or courier companies, sending messages that appear urgent to trick users into clicking malicious links.“And these links look absolutely genuine, almost impossible to tell apart from the real ones. Once you click, they extract your personal and financial information and use it to scam you. We are seeing an alarming surge in such threats in the last few days,” he added.On the new protection mechanism, Vittal reassured customers that “whenever they are on the Airtel mobile network or connected to Airtel Wi-Fi, this added layer of protection will be active by default.”