Govt to form panel to draft guidelines to check pesky calls

The government may be looking at regulating or issuing guidelines to over-the-top channels such as WhatsApp to check the increasing menace of pesky calls and messages, with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs leading the discussions on the subject.

Rohit Kumar Singh, Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) chaired a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the issue of unsolicited commercial calls which are made by enterprises to promote their products and services.

“In this meeting, they discussed in detail the issue of spam calls and how they are now switching to internet call, especially using Whatsapp to mislead consumers. It was proposed in the meeting to constitute a committee for drafting guidelines for regulating and checking pesky calls,” the DoCA said in a post on X on Wednesday.

The meeting was attended by representatives from the Department of Telecommunications, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), telecom industry body COAΙ, and telecom companies including Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel.

Back in 2018, the TRAI mandated all telcos to adopt a blockchain-based system to onboard all enterprises who wish to send commercial messages and calls. It was to ensure that telecom users receive only the communication which they have consented for.

Lately, WhatsApp through its Business channel has also started sending marketing communication with options to opt-out for recipients.