The Department of Telecommunications’ proposed Caller Name Presentation (CNAP) system marks a critical moment in reconciling the choice between digital governance, safety, and citizen autonomy. With the introduction of CNAP, the disclosure of a caller’s KYC-verified name becomes mandatory each time he or she makes a call. The identity to be displayed is to be attuned with the KYC documents that citizens use while enrolling for SIM cards. In this light, it becomes significant to look at CNAP as not just a technical advancement. A fundamental issue is whether, in a digital democracy, choice is entitled to every citizen. The CNAP system aims to display the caller’s name, pulled from the SIM registration database, on the recipient’s phone screen. In principle, it is positioned as a check against fraud, spoofing, and impersonation. According to a recent study published in India Today, more than 60 per cent of Indians receive three or four spam calls daily. If viewed from that perspective, especially since India is dealing with spam calls on scale, the purpose behind CNAP deserves credit. However, the issue is not with what CNAP wants to solve; it is with how it chooses to solve it and the causal dissonance between theory and practicality. CNAP: A Default Disclosure Model According to TRAI’s 2024 recommendations, the KYC-linked name associated with a mobile number sourced from the Customer Acquisition Form (CAF) will be shown to recipients by default. Presently, the only limited exemptions are for users with Caller Line Identification Restriction (CLIR), a feature that remains restricted to VIPs and high-ranking officials. To establish CNAP as an altruistic service, a meaningful architecture based on choice must be planned out. As of now, the proposed system does not offer the user any granular control over their caller ID, such as allowing them to “opt-in” for the service of explicit disclosure of their phone numbers. This means that caller ID is always shown by default on everyone’s devices during an incoming call, just as a number is displayed. In fact, in many countries, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and others, a citizen is allowed to use prefixes before making a call, which turns off the default caller ID. With CNAP, this exposure goes a step further, i.e., the display of a caller’s name and number. This highlights a critical gap in India’s evolving digital public infrastructure, where there is an absence of choice. This further reveals a missing layer in the proposed system, one where default exposure is the norm, and thus opt-in mechanisms are structurally absent. Telecom consultant Mahesh Uppal, Director at ComFirst (India), warns, “The TRAI proposal on CNAP is problematic on several grounds, including privacy challenges and effectiveness. There are legitimate reasons why a person may not wish to reveal his/her identity to the called party. Examples include whistleblowers, those reporting abuse, and medical professionals.” It is obvious that the presumption of all users being willing and able to disclose their identity with every call potentially sidelines important considerations of user autonomy. Digital Divide and Inaccuracies Any discussion around CNAP must acknowledge that it is being introduced into a country with a deeply stratified digital landscape. At one end are smartphone users equipped with apps, literacy, and digital awareness. At the other end are millions using basic feature phones, often economically and digitally disadvantaged and rural populations and the elderly. Even among urban users, it is common for mobile connections to be registered under a family member’s or employer’s name, with rules allowing 9 SIM cards to be registered on a single ID. Further, the implicit assumption that the SIM owner and the caller are always the same individual is too simplistic. Uppal highlights that in usage, CNAP could be counterproductive, and disclosing identities by default on phone screens could lead to automatic rejection of calls or escalations, thereby impacting a person’s livelihood or professional life and causing a surge in mistrust. “The caller could be a delivery person or a stranger informing someone of an accident involving a loved one. On the other hand, a person making an inquiry about a new service or product automatically risks abuse of their identity.” Such infrastructural gaps in a CNAP service could instead give way to fraudulent activities. These include the display of spoofed caller names and international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) theft, amongst others. These risks are augmented by the fact that the CNAP service does not detect or block fake mobile identities. Resultantly, this raises the important question of how the CNAP service seeks to weed out maliciously created identities once they find their way into the CNAP database. More importantly, whether later-stage verification of the CNAP database is even possible. CNAP also draws attention to the opaque mechanisms of inter-operator data sharing. For the system to function seamlessly across networks, telecom providers will need access to each other’s subscriber name databases. TRAI has recommended a federated framework (Model 2) to avoid centralisation. Yet even this decentralised approach raises important concerns: “How will name mismatches or identity errors be addressed? Who will be responsible for auditing the system? Shouldn’t citizens have the agency to opt into a KYC-backed caller identification system, rather than having it imposed on them by default? Uppal points out that there is very little indication that robust safeguards are being built in. “TRAI appears to have paid limited attention to these risks, which is concerning given the seriousness of the potential harms,” he says. Importance of an Opt-In Model Finally, CNAP raises another fundamental question about how identity is governed in a digital democracy. A caller’s intent cannot be judged merely by a name on a screen. If the intended purpose of the CNAP system is accountability, security, and disclosure, does visibility without layered formats, emphasising participation, like a genuine opt-in model, solve the objective? Further, depriving consumers of the choice to opt in for such a solution that could potentially cause them harm, as it entails disclosure of KYC-verified information, poses far-reaching consequences for the digital economy and must not be ignored. CNAP’s design leaves very little room for citizens to decide how their personal identification is shared. Law-abiding citizens, ordinary too, must have the right to informational autonomy and choice.