Pesky calls, SMSes: TRAI directs telcos to develop digital consent acquisition process

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked telecom operators to develop a digital consent acquisition (DCA) platform to seek, maintain, and revoke access of customers for receiving promotional messages and calls.

“Considering volume of work involved, TRAI has allocated two months time to develop such facilities by all access providers and thereafter implement it in a phased manner,” said the telecom regulator in a statement.

The directive has been issued under the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018).

The directive marks a shift from the prevalent system wherein the consent is obtained and maintained by various entities such as banks, other financial institutions, insurance companies, trading companies, business entities, real state companies, and others, that are referred to as principal entities (PEs) in TCCCPR, 2018 Regulations.

“Therefore, it is not possible for the access providers to check veracity of consents. Further, there is no unified system for customers to provide or revoke consent,” TRAI said.

Accordingly, TRAI said that the DCA process shall have a facility to seek, maintain and revoke the consent of customers, as per the processes envisaged under TCCCP Regulation 2018.

“The consent data so collected will be shared on digital ledger platform (DLT) for scrubbing by all Access Providers,” TRAI said.

The telcos have been further directed to use a common short code – 127xxx – for sending consent-seeking messages.

“The purpose, scope of consent and principal entity/Brand name shall be mentioned clearly in the consent seeking message sent through the short code. Only whitelisted URLs/ APKs/OTT links/call back numbers shall be used in the consent seeking messages,” TRAI said.

Telcos have also been directed to develop an SMS/IVR online facility to register the unwillingness of the customers to receive any consent-seeking messages initiated by any principal entity (PE).

In the first phase, only subscriber-initiated consent acquisition has been permitted by TRAI, according to the statement.

“Subsequently, PE-initiated consent acquisition shall be permitted,” TRAI said, adding that initially, Principal Entities belonging to the banking, insurance, finance, and trading related sectors shall be onboarded to initiate consent-seeking acquisition process while the remaining sectors shall be onboarded in the due course of time.