From December 1, 2022, new laws against call spam will apply in Germany. These are intended to offer better protection against phone number manipulation, which is used, among other things, for shock calls. Call ID spoofing should no longer be possible due to the new rules of the Federal Network Agency.

Federal Network Agency

Call spam: new rules against call ID spoofing

In a recent announcement, the Federal Network Agency points out that new regulations for better protection against so-called call ID spoofing will come into force on December 1, 2022. This is a technique through which a wrong phone number appears on the display. Criminals disguise their identity in this way and sometimes use the principle for shock calls.

Call ID spoofing is in practice often used with the emergency numbers 112 and 110. Callers are led to believe that the police or emergency services are on the other end of the line. A monetary payment is then demanded for an invented reason.

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Marco Kratzenberg

According to the new regulations, all providers of publicly available telecommunications services must ensure that Call ID spoofed calls automatically dropped will. This not only applies to emergency numbers, but also to expensive numbers that start with 0900 or 0137 (source: Federal Network Agency).

In addition, telecommunications providers are allowed to charge calls from foreign networks no longer display German phone numbers. Instead, the phone number must be suppressed. Mobile phone numbers in international roaming are excluded from this.

Here’s how to block spam calls on mobile:

Call Spam: More blocked phone numbers

The Federal Network Agency points out that the measures in the future will probably more calls with withheld numbers will worry. Callers should always ensure the identity of the caller – regardless of whether a phone number is displayed or not.