No more spam calls? Govt plans verified caller ID rollout across India by 2026

The Telecom Department has asked the telecom operators to begin the pilot run of the Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) feature, which allows users to see the name of the incoming caller. The department expects the pan-India rollout of the feature by March 31, 2026, as per a PTI report.

​Vodafone Idea is said to have already begun the CNAP pilot in Haryana. Meanwhile, Jio will begin the pilot in Haryana for calls coming in from anywhere in the country. DoT is said to be pushing for the full-scale implementation of the feature at the earliest.

​TRAI is also said to agree with DoT that CNAP should be enabled by default to display the original name of the caller as per their KYC-based identification used for the connection.

​While third-party service providers like Truecaller have been providing the option of getting information about incoming calls for years, the implementation of CNAP will mean that users would get authenticated information by their telecom operator about who the call is from, and since it will be backed by the KYC-backed document used to buy the SIM, there are lesser chances of a false positive.

​TRAI believes that the implementation of CNAP will lead to fewer spams and fraudulent calls while also checking cybercrime activities like financial frauds and digital arrest cases.

​Previous reports have suggested that CNAP will initially only be applicable for 4G and 5G networks, with smartphone makers likely to be given a cut-off date to implement the functionality on their devices. Meanwhile, 2G network users will likely be included in the fold after the initial implementation is successful.

​The exclusion of 2G users means that over 200 million users in India will not get the benefit of the new facility, or they will have to switch to a 4G or 5G network.

​The recommendation for implementation of CNAP was sent by TRAI to DoT back in February 2024, suggesting that the feature should be activated only upon the request of subscribers to whom a call is made.

​DoT, however, was of the view that CNAP service should be available by default to the person receiving the call, and if any subscriber does not want the service, then they could request to disable it.