TRAI has sought feedback by June 11 on the proposed framework and will issue its final order after studying the suggestions
If the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India goes ahead with its plan, you will soon get to decide which day and at what time insurance and property brokers can call you. This is because the regulator is keen to adopt blockchain technology to check the menace of unsolicited commercial communication or telemarketing that results in mobile users getting unwanted calls and SMS at the oddest of hours.
TRAI has sought feedback by June 11 on the proposed framework and will issue its final order after studying the suggestions. The new regime will replace the existing model that was found to be limited in curbing the problem. It currently takes seven days for the preferences registered by the customer to become effective. TRAI’s new rules will make the registration immediate. The user will also be able to make a periodic review of the choices it has made.
“The regulator will use a mix of technology and regulation to ensure fly-by-night operators are caught early in the process,” TRAI Chairman RS Sharma said at a press conference, called to reveal the regulator’s new approach to tackle the harassment mobile users face on a daily basis.
Blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger that keeps record of all the transactions online. It makes a chain of all the transactions in such a way that no part can be edited or deleted or altered in any manner. Changes can only be made by adding to the existing chain.
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When applied to telemarketing, blockchain technology will record all the requests a mobile user has made at any point of time, thereby protecting him from any undesired activity of the third party. It will set a digital trail of any action by the mobile user, making the record non-repudiable. This will protect the user as well as the telemarketer by keeping a record of all the ‘opt-in or opt-out’ choice it has made.
“We will strike a balance between real commercial calls and spurious calls. People have found innovative ways to escape punishment. There are unregistered telemarketers, there is sub-contracting happening,” Sharma said. The proposed structure will be granular and aligned to a mobile subscriber’s needs.
Sharma said the regulator and telecom services providers would collaborate even more closely now to make the new formula a success. TRAI officials, present at the press conference, said mobile companies gained little from telemarketing and instead attracted far more adverse reactions from the users for the poor quality of services and it was thus felt to make them a partner in the proposed approach.
The regulator had issued a consultation paper in September 2017 to check the rise of telemarketing. After ebbing for a few years, the nuisance of these calls and SMS has worsened significantly over the last three-four years.
TRAI currently disconnects the numbers and blacklists any entity that is found to have initiated an unsolicited commercial call. But the regulator found that such entities managed to get new connections and continued to indulge in these activities. Therefore, it felt there was a need to devise a more effective mechanism to deal with the issue.
The problem has only grown bigger in the last few years as more users come to possess smartphones and use more data, making themselves more vulnerable to spying, sharing and selling of their private data.
Under TRAI’s existing regulatory framework, subscribers can register for not getting calls and SMS from telemarketers. Provisions are also there to set one or more of seven pre-defined categories of fields or areas in which one may be interested to receive telemarketer SMS. But this has been of little help as mobile service providers express their helplessness and plead ‘not guilty’.
Mobile users, who have registered with the regulator’s ‘Do Not Call’ registry, continue to get telemarketing calls from agencies such as banks, insurance companies, real estate agents, stock brokers and other utility service providers.
Telemarketing activities are permitted only after registration with TRAI and after entering into agreements with mobile service providers. There are different standard agreements for different purposes such as promotional voice calls, promotional SMS, transactional SMS, SMS with reply among others.