While the blocking of fraudulent Web sites has been both a widely publicized and controversial issue for Italy’s Piracy Shield platform, the blocking of fraudulent phone calls there may not occur to many in the anti-piracy world.
But in a similar spirit, Italy’s telecom regulator AGCOM requires communications carriers to implement filtering platforms that detect fraudulent calls coming from outside of the country.
As a result of monitoring activity on the correct use of numbers for teleselling and telemarketing purposes, AGCOM initiated sanctioning proceedings against two companies: Retelit Digital Services S.p.A. and Tekmind S.r.l. with penalties amounting to 700,000.00 and 122,500.00 euros, respectively.
The sanctioned companies failed to implement measures established by AGCOM, consisting of the verification of the correctness of the numbers used by the call centers, including the generation of numbers through a spoofing technique, and in the management of the numbering assigned according to standards of diligence. In these cases, the Authority was able to trace the operators and call centers that put in place, in Italy, conducts that did not comply with the parameters of AGCOM legislation.
Measure of success
In the first eight months of 2026, said AGCOM, anti-spoofing filters have blocked about 191 million calls from abroad (7.2% of the total) with a counterfeit Italian caller number (CLI) or with a number that does not comply with international specifications, on average about 790 thousand per day.
Compared to the period from November 1 to November 18, 2025, before the extension of the block to Italian mobile numbers, calls from abroad with Italian mobile numbers had decreased by 95%, from 26.8 to 1.2 million per day, while total international traffic was reduced by about two-thirds, from 34 to 11 million daily calls.
Calls blocked, by type of caller number (CLI):
– 38 million with Italian landline number, equal to 1.4% of the total international calls;
– 148 million with Italian mobile number, equal to 49% of calls with Italian mobile number;
– 4.6 million with a number that does not comply with international specifications, equal to 0.2% of the total number of international calls.
The back story
In 2025, AGCOM introduced regulations against incoming calls from international sources which illegally spoof their actual Caller-ID with Italian phone numbers; first for fixed-line operators, and then for mobile.
AGCOM’s Resolution 106/25-CONS introduced mandatory anti-spoofing measures for all telecommunications operators, including: implementation of digital communication protocols for VoIP calls to ensure caller identity verification, real-time validation of caller location and network association, blacklist management through dynamic databases of suspicious numbers with continuous monitoring, and automated blocking capabilities for immediate elimination of unverifiable or suspicious calls.
But unlike Italy’s Piracy Shield site blocking regimen, which uses a notification platform operated by AGCOM and requires Internet service providers to block illegal Web sites within 30 minutes of notification by rights-holders, AGCOM leaves the choice of call-blocking platforms up to the carriers.
Operators obtain fraud management systems from commercial sources that include software suppliers that provide signaling security, robocall-detection and anti-spoofing products; analytics and real-time query platforms, and network suppliers that offer session border controllers and routing software.
Why it matters
Italy’s call-blocking platform has been effective against fraudulent incoming calls from international sources. And who knows, perhaps some of these fraudulent calls would have been promoting illegal video services.
Further reading
Teleselling, Agcom snctions two companies for almoste 830,000 euros. Anti-spoofing filter bloked about 191 million illegal calls in the first 8 months of 2026. Press release. October 12, 2026. AGCOM (Authorta per le Garanzie Nelle Communicazioni, Italy)
