India’s telecom authorities have issued a fresh advisory highlighting how ordinary phone calls are increasingly being used as entry points for scams, even as a long-discussed caller identity system begins to take shape as a countermeasure.

For many users, the pattern is familiar: the phone rings, the call is picked up, and no one responds. According to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), these “silent calls” are intentional rather than technical faults.

Officials explain that such calls are designed to check whether a number is active. Once answered, the number is marked as live and becomes more valuable to fraud networks. It can then be circulated within scam databases and later targeted for phishing, impersonation or financial fraud. The DoT has advised users to block these numbers immediately and report them via the government’s Sanchar Saathi portal, which aims to gather public inputs to identify and disrupt telecom abuse.

The warning signals a broader concern within the government: many frauds today begin not with advanced hacking tools, but with simple behavioural triggers that rely on users answering calls out of habit.

At the same time, India’s telecom ecosystem is seeing a gradual but significant change. Reliance Jio has started deploying Caller Name Presentation (CNAP), a feature that shows the registered name of the caller on the recipient’s screen.

Unlike third-party caller-ID applications that depend on user-generated labels, CNAP pulls data directly from subscriber details submitted during SIM registration. Since this information is document-verified, authorities argue it is harder to falsify on a large scale.

Supporters believe this could help restore confidence in voice calls, which have become a weak link in the digital security chain. Seeing a verified name, they say, may discourage users from engaging with unknown or spoofed callers. However, the initiative also revives concerns around privacy, data accuracy and the risk of misuse—issues regulators and telecom companies say they are addressing through a phased rollout.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has instructed other major operators—Airtel, Vodafone-Idea (Vi) and BSNL—to implement CNAP, aiming to make it a nationwide standard rather than a single-network feature.

Progress varies by operator. Jio’s CNAP is already active across several regions in eastern, northern and southern India, including West Bengal, Kerala, Bihar, Rajasthan and Odisha. Airtel has introduced the feature in select circles such as West Bengal, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. Vodafone-Idea has rolled it out primarily in Maharashtra, with limited testing in Tamil Nadu, while BSNL is still conducting pilot trials.

Industry executives note that the rollout is technically demanding, involving upgrades to older network infrastructure and coordination between operators. Regulators view CNAP as one layer in a broader anti-spam strategy that also includes call filtering, identification of bulk callers and tighter controls on telemarketers.

The rise of silent calls alongside verified caller names reflects a larger shift: phone calls are no longer inherently trustworthy. Scammers thrive on anonymity and volume, while authorities are responding with greater emphasis on identity and traceability.

Whether CNAP will significantly reduce fraud remains uncertain. Experts point out that fake or improperly verified SIM registrations still exist, and user trust in displayed names will depend on data quality and enforcement.

For now, the official guidance is cautious. Silent calls should be treated as red flags, not harmless glitches. Caller names, even when verified, should be assessed carefully. In a country handling billions of calls daily, small changes in how people respond to their phones could meaningfully influence the fight between fraud and vigilance.