Fraud

In case of telephone spoofing people are called with a false calling line identification: that is the number you see on the screen of your telephone or smartphone. Frauds gain the trust of the victims they call by making a Belgian number (e.g. a bank’s or someone else’s number) appear on the screen, even if they call from another line. Next they try to get hold of information and/or money.

Is spoofing forbidden?

The  Royal Decree of 12 May 2024 to combat international voice calls with spoofed Belgian telephone numbers (hereinafter “spoofing Royal Decree”) lays down that international calls using a Belgian number made to Belgian numbers must be blocked.There is an exception for bona fide applications (see further) .

Operators must take the necessary measures for geographical numbers (such as 02 numbers) as from 1 September 2024 and for mobile numbers as from 1 December 2024, in order to comply with this new rule.

Thanks to this Royal Decree spoofed calls made from abroad and received in Belgium, are made impossible, barring a few exceptions. 

What falls outside the scope of the spoofing Royal Decree?

In the following cases the Royal Decree has no impact, thus making spoofing still possible:

• SMS traffic;
• voice calls made in Belgium;
• all voice calls received with foreign telephone numbers;
• all voice calls you receive when roaming abroad with your smartphone.

Unfortunately there are no effective solutions yet in the cases mentioned above. 

For what bona fide applications is calling from abroad using a Belgian geographical number still possible?

In case of the following services it is still possible to receive calls from abroad provided the provider of that service meets a number of conditions and only with Belgian geographical numbers:

• when using the Internet line to make calls through “nomadic numbers” (a telephone number you can use worldwide because it is not linked to a certain termination point but to a specific device – also called “nomadic VoIP services");
• when using cloud-based dial-out conference services;
• when using cloud-based customer support services;
• when using cloud-based telephone direct marketing services.

Companies operating with call centres and customer support services based on cloud applications, will have to register their Belgian telephone numbers with their operators and satisfy some specific conditions in order to exclude spoofing as much as possible (see question “What conditions do companies have to satisfy in order to enjoy the exceptions laid down in the spoofing Royal Decree?”).

For nomadic VoIP calls the nomadic use of telephone numbers is occasional compared to the use of those numbers for calls made from Belgium.