Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) suggests women use a temporary mobile number when recharging at offline stores to ensure privacy.
However, three days after its announcement, the privacy measure is not yet operational.
What is Kavach? State-owned BSNL announced Kavach on International Women’s Day (March 8) to keep women’s numbers private and potentially reduce the risk of unwanted contact in offline retail stores. According to news reports, users must call BSNL’s customer care to obtain a temporary 10-digit number that expires after a set period.
When BSNL staff are unaware of their own features
We contacted BSNL customer care (1800 180 1503) from Hyderabad and Varanasi using different numbers. In both cases, the representatives said they were unaware of Kavach.
After we explained the feature, both representatives advised us to visit a BSNL office in person for more information.
BSNL promoted Kavach on X, Instagram, and Facebook, and likely sent press releases to the Indian Express, Times Now, and the Economic Times.
We also tested the WhatsApp bot (1800-4444) featured in its advertisements. While the bot allows mobile recharges, it does not offer any option to obtain a temporary number.
As a result, we were unable to test the feature at the time of writing.
Unanswered Questions Regarding BSNL’s Kavach
- Why is this feature limited to women when the right to privacy should apply to all users?
- Is it possible to use temporary numbers to receive OTPs and redirect spam traffic?
- If this is not possible, what is the rationale for BSNL’s focus on privacy breaches occurring only through offline vendors during mobile recharges?
- Additionally, how can users benefit from this feature if BSNL has not implemented it?
Feeling déjà vu? If a secondary phone number linked to your primary SIM sounds familiar, you may recall Doosra, discontinued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) due to regulatory issues.
Entrepreneur Aditya Vuchi founded Doosra to combat telecom spam. The app allowed users to link a virtual number to their primary SIM and share it with businesses, dating sites, or restaurants instead of their real number.
Messages sent to the virtual number appeared in the Doosra app without notifications, while calls were silenced by default unless the caller was whitelisted. The service allowed users to access services while limiting spam and protecting their primary phone number.
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