From Saturday June 7 the operators in Spain must block foreign calls and SMS messages that use false Spanish numbers as part of the Government´s fight to control «spoofing» and telephone fraud.
On Saturday June 7 the restriction in Spain that affects calls from mobile phones came into effect.
The Order TDF/149/2025, published for the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function establishes a definitive veto on these practices. According to the text the aim is to «tackle the use of national mobile numbers to commit fraud and supplant identities that procure confidential user information, such as personal data from banks.
This does not mean an end to commercial calls but changes the numbering. From now companies can only use lines especifically assigned for this purpose, such as 1004 for Telefonica and numbers using prefixes 800 or 900, all free of charge. This change aims to aid the reciever recognise a commercial offer and make it difficult for fraudsters to camuflage themselves as such.
At the same time operators are under a mandatory obligation to block calls and SMS messages that come from numbers not assigned to clients or services such as those that begin with 3 or 4. The Ministry estimates the impact of this measure, already in effect from March 7 this year, has impeded access to 235,600 fraudulent calls and 10,000 SMS messages.
From Saturday the government strategy goes a step further by obliging operators to block international calls and SMS messages from come from a Spanish telephone number, with the exception of clients with roaming.
In the next few months the last piece of Government strategy against fraud will be come into effect: the introduction of an official database with the alphanumeric codes used by companies and public administrations to send SMS messages. The Ministry states: «This measure, for its complex technical nature will come into effect within 15 months».
The list, managed by the CNMC (National Commision of Markets and Competence) permits the registration and verification of identities in order to guarantee the authenticity of the communications and protect the identity of legitimate entities.
