Surprise ! No more hidden calls will bother you, but for a good cause

We are at the end of 2025, and despite the authorities’ attempts to stop themthe scourges of cold calling and phone number theft are still a reality. On December 2, Arcep, the telecommunications regulatory authority, announced the implementation on January 1, 2026 of a new measure to try to prevent identity theft. And it may not necessarily please everyone.

When in doubt, wear a mask

So, when operators cannot ensure that a number is authentic, or that a call is made by an unauthenticated French number from abroad, they will have to display the call hidden. The organization specifies: “From now on, the hidden number will mean that either the caller wanted to hide their calling number, or that the calling number could not be authenticated for technical reasons.“

We must therefore believe that the previous avenue explored to display the number 99 99 99 99 99 during a call that cannot be authenticated has not been completed or is not yet ready. If operators have technical means to detect and therefore prevent telephone number theft via its caller number authentication mechanism (MAN), Arcep indicates that since January 2025 it has still received almost 18,000 reports. Last July, that number was 10,000.

The authors of fraudulent calls are therefore always very active and visibly inventive in circumventing the protections put in place against them. This application of hidden calls will probably not slow them down much, but it should at least allow users to pick up less when they should not.