Trai seeks help from RBI, sectoral regulators to push via anti-spam process | News
A unified platform to seek, maintain, and revoke the consent given by customers for receiving commercial communication from businesses, the DCA was first mandated by the sector regulator in June 2023 to curb the rising cases of spam and excessive tele-calling in the country. It also enables senders, such as banks, insurance companies, and other entities—called ‘Principal Entities’ (PEs)—to send promotional communications via SMS and voice to customers, regardless of their Do Not Disturb (DND) status.
In recent meetings with the regulators on steps to curb spam, Trai raised the issue, officials said. “For the PEs not on board, the matter has been taken up with the concerned regulators and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs,” a top Trai official said.
“For SMS, the DCA is already running, but no entity has come on board. We are meeting and pursuing PEs to join,” another official said. To enhance message traceability, Trai has mandated that the trail of all messages from senders to recipients must be traceable from November 1, 2024. Any message with an undefined or mismatched telemarketer chain will be rejected.
Meanwhile, Trai mandated telcos to migrate telemarketing calls starting with the 140 series to the online DLT platform by 30 September for better monitoring and control. “For voice calls, we are assessing compliance. Many businesses are yet to respond, but going forward, the issue should be resolved,” the official stressed.
Until now, there had been no unified system for customers to provide or revoke consent. In the earlier system, customer consent was obtained and maintained by businesses. The problem often starts when these businesses purchase bulk short messaging services (SMS) from a telemarketer to send SMS texts to their clients and customers. As a result, telecom service providers such as Access Providers (APs) could not verify the authenticity of the consent.
First Published: Oct 03 2024 | 7:03 PM IST
