Millions of citizens in Italy can breathe a sigh of relief: In the fight against aggressive advertising calls and telephone fraud, the Italian communications supervisory authority AGCOM has issued new, stricter rules that will gradually come into force with immediate effect. The measures focus on the illegal practice of "spoofing", in which call centers conceal their true identity by displaying a fake or non-existent telephone number on the display of the person being called.
Two-stage plan against counterfeit numbers
The protective shield for consumers is being ramped up in two phases. The first stage comes into force today, Tuesday, August 19: with immediate effect, calls from abroad that illegally use an Italian telephone number as the sender ID will be blocked. This is intended to prevent the majority of aggressive advertising calls, which are often made by foreign call centers on behalf of companies. In a second step, the measure will be tightened further from November 19. Calls with spoofed numbers that appear to originate from Italian cell phones will then also be blocked.
Protection against harassment and fraud
Spoofing involves manipulating the Calling Line Identity (CLI), which makes it impossible for consumers to trace the origin of a call. This tactic is not only used for illegal telemarketing, but also harbors considerable risks of fraud. In particularly serious cases, criminals falsify the numbers of banks, authorities or even the police in order to obtain sensitive data. AGCOM's decision, which has now been implemented, was preceded by a long consultation phase with consumer associations, companies and telecommunications providers. The new regulation replaces the previous provisions from 2016 and also provides for further consumer protection measures, such as a traffic light system to make 5G mobile contracts easier to understand.
