South Africa’s spam calls reached 17.5 billion in the first half of 2026. Now, the government wants companies to prove they have checked who they call before they press send.
The National Consumer Commission (NCC), South Africa’s consumer watchdog, launched a National Opt-Out Registry on Wednesday that will allow consumers to block unwanted direct marketing pre-emptively.
The registry is part of a sweeping government effort to tackle South Africa’s growing spam-call problem. Marketers will have to register with the system and cleanse their lists every month before running campaigns. Fintechs, banks, telcos, insurers, retailers and other digital businesses will need to build consumer opt-outs into their marketing systems.
Truecaller’s 2026 South Africa Spam Report found that there were 17.5 billion spam calls between January and June, 25.2% higher than the same period in 2025. Spam short message service (SMS) messages also jumped 58.9% to 3.7 billion
Originally published by TechCabal.