By ; Wael Elgafry

In alignment with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Egypt’s (NTRA) efforts to protect the privacy of telecom users and eliminate spam calls, NTRA acknowledged regulations for using mobile lines to conduct promotional and commercial calls.  By virtue of such regulations, those wishing to make promotional and commercial calls must officially register their data within the database of mobile operators in Egypt’s market and have the service of promotional calls activated, to ensure this service is lawfully and legitimately provided without prejudice or disturbance to the privacy of citizens. Upon the activation of spam calls service, users will receive promotional calls with the name as well as number of the promotional entity unveiled, or get a pre-alert (NTRA Alert) indicating that the incoming phone call is promotional, and therefore, they will be given the option whether to answer or ignore such calls.

In case citizens have received anonymous promotional calls or without pre-alert, the number of caller will be reported whereas all legal and regulatory measures will be taken against the calling entity for not registering its data within the database of mobile operators and violating the regulations set regarding this matter.

In this sense, NTRA provided multi channels for citizens to report any violations against spam calls’ regulations, including mobile operators’ or NTRA call centers, hotline (155), My NTRA interactive app or via the assigned website: https://fraud.tra.gov.eg. 

This step comes in response to the noticeably increasing user-complaints against receiving such a type of calls. It’s also noteworthy that NTRA had been studying the best technical practices applied worldwide to eliminate spam calls since last year and directed mobile operators to do the necessary technical updates in order to activate this service across Egypt’s market. A grace period of one month was also provided for mobile operators so as to fully launch the service, and for those wishing to officially conduct promotional calls to have their data registered.