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DoT active-SIM mandate for messaging apps

Public Sector Action
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H score 26
1 unique sources, 1 articles

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India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) ordered app-based communication services to keep users tied to an active SIM card, a move meant to reduce phishing, scams, and cyber fraud. The directive extends Telecommunications (Telecom Cyber Security) Rules, 2024 to messaging platforms that use an Indian mobile number as the identifier. Providers have 90 days to comply, and web sessions must be logged out every six hours. The change is meant to make account takeover, remote misuse, and mule-account abuse harder to sustain.

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Timeline

  1. 02.12.2025 19:46 2 articles · 7mo ago

    India orders active-SIM binding for messaging apps

    Initial Disclosure

    India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) directed app-based communication service providers to ensure that messaging and calling platforms cannot be used without an active SIM card linked to the user's mobile number, extending the same SIM-binding approach already used for banking and UPI apps to services such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat, Arattai, Sharechat, Josh, JioChat, and Signal. The directive gives providers 90 days to comply and requires web service instances to log out every six hours so users must re-link a device by QR code, a change intended to reduce phishing, scams, cyber fraud, account takeover, remote control misuse, mule account operations, and cross-border fraud tied to long-lived sessions and removed or deactivated SIMs.

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