DoT to soon mandate Caller Name Presentation (CNAP) service in the Indian Telecommunication Network; Displays KYC-registered names on incoming calls

If you are a Jio or Airtel user, you may have noticed that certain calls are flagged as Suspected or Spam calls. What if you get to know that similarly, you can also see to whom a certain incoming call’s number corresponds?

A feature called Caller Name Presentation (CNAP) was proposed in 2022. With this feature, the caller ID will display the name that the number was registered under. CNAP feature has been mandated in countries like Qatar, but they have only done so for corporates placing calls. Reportedly, in the next few months, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) will mandate telecom operators to show the KYC-registered name of all incoming callers using Indian phone numbers, and a trial for this feature is ongoing in Haryana.

This move is taken to fight fraud and spam calls, as with this feature, the scammers and spam callers would find it difficult to have their calls answered.

Many industry groups and organisations raised privacy concerns that may arise with this feature, as many users may not be keen to share their numbers, and concerns related to women’s privacy are also voiced out. However, DoT has mentioned that the CNAP feature will display the name of the people calling and not of the people being called. A few months back, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) also released recommendations on the introduction of CNAP service in India, where it has also dismissed these concerns and revealed that a facility called Caller Line Identification Restriction (CLIR) permits users to withhold their identity if needed. This facility is said to be available for top government officials, Ministers, the President, and intelligence agencies.

In the recommendations, TRAI mentioned an opt-in approach where users would sign up for CNAP, but DoT said it should be enabled by default. This feedback was accepted by TRAI, clearing the way for the CNAP feature on most smartphones. There might be an issue with feature handsets when it comes to introducing this feature, which is said to be looked into by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Let’s see when the CNAP feature will come into effect, and would there will be any changes in the feature.