The National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) approved a very welcome measure to combat abusive calls, such as robocalls from marketing and collection companies. From now on, telephone operators are authorized to implement call identification and authentication protocols, with the name, reason and logo of the company that is contacting you — that is, you will have more information to assess whether or not you want to answer a call.
The solution is based on the STIR/SHAKEN protocol, which is widely used in many countries, such as the United States and Canada. Technology is an international standard created in 2019 to combat ID Spoofing, which is the maneuver used by companies to disguise the true numbers of the source of phone calls. And this natively on any device, without the need to use apps or any services, and structured with cryptography and tokens to increase identification security.
Thus, in addition to having the clearest and most authenticated information, users will also be able to find out if any call comes from abusive behavior or a number tampering scam. The measure is much more efficient than the current mandatory identification imposed by Anatel with the code 0303 for calls coming from telemarketing.
It is worth noting that Anatel has been trying for years to reduce the abuse of call centers with robocalls, which have become an epidemic in the country, just as happened in the United States in 2019. And the use of this protocol has managed to considerably reduce the problem in the last four years .
Previous measures to combat robocalls continue — and have been expanded
Anatel also showed a balance of its efforts, with a reduction in the number of short calls, between June 2022 and April 2023. and authorization to providers to charge for calls lasting up to three seconds
Thus, the agency extended, until April 30, 2024, the current precautionary measure, also expanding its scope to all fixed and mobile telephony service providers — the actions covered only the 26 companies in which the highest volume of voice call traffic.
In addition to the 564 blocks of irregular origin of calls, Anatel is starting to make individual providers and large users responsible for breaking the rules or actively acting to try to circumvent the measures. So far, 24 processes have been opened to impose sanctions on teleservice companies (telemarketing, billing, donations, etc.), the financial sector and other activities, with fines that can reach R$ 50 million.
