New Delhi, 16th June,
2025: The
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has observed that a large number
of spam complaints are made by the customers against the business entities from
whom the consumers have earlier purchased goods or services. On investigation, such
business entities often claim that they possess the consent of the consumer for
receiving commercial calls and messages.
Under the regulatory framework defined
by the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations
(TCCCPR), 2018, an entity can make commercial communications to a consumer
irrespective of his/her Do Not Disturb (DND) preferences provided the entity
has taken explicit consent from the consumer. However, in many cases, these
consents were collected through offline or unverifiable means, making it
extremely difficult to ascertain their validity and genuineness. In several
instances, consumers report that their mobile numbers have been acquired by the
entities for this purpose through misrepresentation, deception, or unauthorized
data-sharing practices.
TRAI has undertaken several innovative
regulatory measures in recent years to curb such practices. These include
allowing consumers to register complaints against unregistered telemarketers
(UTMs) even without prior DND registration, and initiating large-scale
disconnection of telecom resources being misused by the entities for spamming
activities. However, verification of consent for commercial communication citing
offline consent of consumer, remains a formidable challenge.
To address the issue, the
regulations provide for acquiring consent digitally by the entities and
registering them in a secure and interoperable digital consent registry
maintained by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) for easy verification of
consents while commercial communication is made to the consumers. However, for
successful operation of this consent registration framework, onboarding of
entities sending commercial communications is a necessary requirement.
Accordingly, to begin the
national roll-out, TRAI has launched a Pilot Project in coordination with the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) involving select banks and has issued a Direction on
13th June, 2025, to all the Telecom Service Providers, mandating
them to pilot this framework in collaboration with banks. Given the sensitivity
of banking transactions and cases of financial frauds through spam calls, the
banking sector has been prioritized for the first phase of implementation. This
Pilot, running under a Regulatory Sandbox framework, will validate the
operational, technical, and regulatory aspects of the enhanced Consent
Registration Function (CRF) and lay the foundation for sector-wise scaling of
the digital consent ecosystem.
TRAI remains committed to
safeguarding consumer interest and enhancing trust in legitimate commercial
communications. The Authority will continue to work with sectoral regulators
and stakeholders to ensure that the ecosystem evolves towards more secure,
transparent, and consumer-centric practices.