Telecom cyber rules not revoked, confirms DoT

The amended Telecom Cybersecurity Rules 2025 that were notified on October 22 are still in force and not revoked, the Department of Telecommunications clarified on Thursday.

There was confusion after the department on Tuesday rescinded an erroneous republication of the same rules. While the October 29 notification republishing the rules now stands revoked, the rules remain in force as per the October 22 gazette notification, it said.

DoT said it wanted to publish another rule for consultation on October 29, but "due to an inadvertent error", the telecom cyber security rules got republished in the gazette.


It issued the notification on November 25 (Tuesday) to rectify this error, the department said.

Under the amended rules, service providers can use a decentralised and privacy-compliant Mobile Number Validation platform to verify whether a mobile number used for a service genuinely belongs to the person whose credentials are on record. This is to curb the surge in mule accounts and identity frauds arising from unverified linkages of mobile numbers with financial and digital services, DoT said.

The amended rules mandate players in India's growing second-hand smartphone market to scrub every device's unique IMEI numbers through a centralised database of blacklisted IMEIs before resale to prevent circulation of blacklisted, stolen, or cloned phones.