Anatel issues precautionary measure to combat phone scams and frauds

On September 23, the Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency (“Anatel”) published a precautionary measure to prevent phone scams and frauds.

Through Decision Order No. 262/2024/COGE/SCO (“Order”), Anatel established measures that must be enforced by Fixed Telephony Service (“STFC”) and Personal Mobile Service (“SMP”) providers in order to verify and ensure transparency and traceability of telephone calls. 

Highlighted provisions include:

1. Amendments to service contracts
   • Within 120 days, providers must include a clause in their service contracts to establish that any means of assignment, use, or intermediation of a numbering resource or call generation capacity by the contracting user of a telecommunications provider for third parties using such service on their behalf is a regulatory violation (art. 1).
   • Within 120 days, providers must include clauses in their contracts with corporate users to establish duties to:
     • Keep phone call records for at least five years and provide such records to their respective telecommunications service providers or Anatel; and
     • Properly use telecommunications resources under penalty of suspension or blocking of the service.
2. Prohibition of the sale of products and services that enable undue changes to the caller’s access code
   • Within 15 days, providers must suspend the sale of products and services that perform or enable the undue modification, whether random or not, of the caller’s access code within their network (art. 3).
   • Within 30 days, providers must interrupt the provision of products and services that enable undue modification of the caller’s access code within their network (Art. 4).
3. Processing of incoming traffic
   • As of October 15^th, 2024, providers must survey and evaluate incoming traffic from other providers fortnightly for transferring or terminating calls (art. 5).
   • During this evaluation period, providers who forward calls with irregular, unassigned, vacant, quarantined, or invalid access codes exceeding 10% of the total number of calls forwarded will be deemed a violation subject to penalties, including the suspension of direct and indirect interconnection services, in case of recurring violations.
   • The first infraction will require providers to register an Irregularity Report regarding the flagged traffic and notice parties responsible for the interconnection service to comply with the regulation within 30 days, under penalty of suspension of direct and indirect interconnection services, in case of recurring violations (art. 6).
   • As an alternative to the suspension of the service, Anatel will allow corporate users to sign a formal agreement to refrain from such infractions and present measures to achieve such goals (Art. 7).
4. Establishment of a channel to receive complaints from financial institutions regarding scams and frauds
   • Within 60 days, providers must establish a centralized channel for receiving information from financial institutions regarding access codes with evidence of use for scams and frauds (art. 8).
   • Upon receiving such information, the provider must:
     • Analyze the conduct of users responsible for making irregular calls and
     • Identify the provider responsible for forwarding such calls and inform Anatel.
   • If the violation is confirmed, the provider must notify the users and providers and submit monthly reports to Anatel, who may file a Procedure for Verification of Non-Compliance with Obligation (“PADO”).
5. Submission of reports to Anatel
   • Submit a monthly Traffic and Suspension Report to Anatel by the fifteenth day of the second month following the assessed month (Art. 10).
   • Within 15 days, submit to Anatel the list of companies with whom they have an international traffic or termination agreement, indicating the respective contacts (art. 11).

Non-compliance with the Order can be deemed as a serious violation and is subject to a fine of up to BRL 50 million.

Demarest’s Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT) team is monitoring the topic and remains available to provide any clarifications that may be necessary.