Digital Consent Pilot Project to Curb Spam Calls

New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) A major pilot project to enhance consumer control over commercial communications by replacing unverifiable, offline consents with a secure digital consent framework is underway, Trai said on Tuesday.

A Joint Committee of Regulators has stepped up efforts to crack down against spam, fraud, and misuse of telecom infrastructure, according to a Trai statement.

The pilot project, coordinated by Trai and the RBI, includes telecom service providers (TSPs) and major banks, such as SBI, PNB, ICICI, HDFC, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Four dedicated working groups will oversee technical, operational, and awareness-building aspects of the pilot, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

The Joint Committee of Regulators at a meeting hosted by Trai in the national capital also discussed fixing timelines for migration to the dedicated 1600-number series for transactional and service calls in the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sectors, the statement added.

Considering different scales of operation of entities, it was agreed that migration may be made in a phased manner based on the inputs provided by the sectoral regulators to Trai.

Representatives from the RBI, SEBI, IRDAl, PFRDA and IT Ministry convened at Trai headquarters, joined by officials from the Department of Telecom (DoT), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The forum focused on rolling out collaborative regulatory measures, especially in light of rising digital payment-linked fraud.

In a digital-first economy, collaboration among financial sector regulators, digital communication regulators and security agencies becomes paramount, Trai Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti said.

In addition, the committee discussed the requirement of automated exchange of spam and cyber fraud data between Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Digital Intelligence Platform of the DoT and DLT platform maintained by the access providers.

According to the statement, this will enable swift action against the telecom resources of the fraudsters, such as number disconnection, in a bid to prevent them from carrying out further fraud.

The committee flagged the misuse of SIP and PRI telecom lines for bulk spam. Options under discussion include issuing these lines from a designated number range and imposing additional safeguards to ensure responsible use.

The sector regulator said it has revamped its SMS header portal to empower customers to get information about the entities sending commercial messages using a particular header.