From the August 19, 2025 the anti-Spoofing filter of theAGCOM (Authority for guarantees in communications) must be obligatory used by all telephone operatorsso as to automatically block international calls that disguise themselves behind Italian fixed numbers. It is a concrete and long -awaited intervention, which could significantly reduce telephone fraud, such as those of the energy sector, where almost all commercial calls is fraudulent. According to the surveys of the Association ART (Energy Trader and Trader Association), 97% of the phone calls you receive from alleged operators of the energy market is false. Not only that: every year they are reported beyond 10,000 episodes of scams related to disguised numberswith medium losses that oscillate between the 150 and 200 euros per family.
Here in such a “wild” context the introduction of a technical block to prevent spoofing, that is, the falsification of the identity of the calling number to access a system with deception, represents a fundamental step for reduce economic damage, Counter the illegal dissemination of personal data and restore a minimum of trusted in users regarding communications that take place by phone.
How widespread spoofing is: telephone scams and wild telemarketing
The spoofingor more precisely CLI Spoofing (Calling Line Identification Spoofing), is a technique that allows you to falsify the call numberAnd, making it appear as a local address, even if the call comes from call center located outside Europe. Often the number displayed on the display corresponds to that of a public body, an energy supplier, a bank or another body considered reliable. Once answered, the interlocutors try to convince you to provide personal data, accept a change of contract, and so on. All this is possible thanks to systems Voip (Voice over IP), which allow you to change the data transmitted during the call, making it difficult to distinguish an authentic phone call from a scam.
The phenomenon just described is worrying, especially if you relate it with the numbers that emerged from an investigation by the Association ARTwho collected thousands of reports through his Antitriff portal. Taking as a reference the energy sectoralmost half (47.9%) fraudulent calls comes from subjects who pretend to be the current supplier of the potential victim contacted; a further 15.7% It presents itself as a competitor on the free market, while others go to represent local distributors or even non -existent national authorities for consumer protection. Only an eighteous minority, the 3.5%can be considered attributable to real companies that operate with transparent methods (purely their previous energy supplier who proposes commercial offers in a non -fraudulent way to return to being a client). This means that 97 calls of telemarketing out of 100 could have deceptive purposes.
Diego Pellegrinospokesman for the Arte Association, in a press conference held in recent days at Chamber of Deputiesthus commented on the graphic designer in question:
If you look at them (the numbers of the graphic designer, editor’s note) real phone calls, those made by someone who calls you and correctly identifies itself as required by legislation, which therefore respects all the rules, (…) is only 3.5% of the calls, which present themselves with the name of their previous supplier. (…) We are talking about 350 calls out of 10,000. These are the numbers.
One of the most serious aspects of all this story is that, to be credible, scammers often use real personal data obtained illegally through unauthorized channels. These are sensitive information – such as name, address, customer code or even the mobile number – used to make you believe that the call comes from a reliable source. Just about the data issue, Pellegrino explained:
They have stolen the data, they know who your current supplier is and (…) when we are going to upload a Switch practice (change of supplier, editor’s note), 24 hours after this customer is tarded calls. There is a hole somewhere of these data that are removed. Because after only 24 hours to have the meter, the address, the tax code, often also the IBAN (because then they also cross other databases, which come from other parts, they can also have our bank data) … here they manage to scam you easily.
What changes from August 19th with AGCOM filters: how they work
Faced with the scenario painted by the report drawn up by Art, the measures decided by Agcom represent a first concrete attempt to react, even if they do not solve all the critical issues at the root. Starting from August 19thall calls from abroad they use unrealized Italian fixed numbers they will automatically be blocked by network operators. This filter will then be extended – starting from November 19th – also to mobile numbers. The verification will be based on technical data contained in VoIP calls, such as fields Pai (P-Asserted-Entetrity) And Fromwhich allow you to control the real origin of the number. If the number used is not active on a foreign network or is not assigned to a customer, the call will be rejected before even reaching your phone. To deepen the functioning of the AGCOM anti-Spoofing filter, we refer you to our deepening dedicated to the latter.
