Unregistered telemarketers’ unwanted commercial communication is being monitored, according to TRAI. The telecom regulatory body TRAI announced on Monday that it is developing a number of technologies to identify bothersome calls and texts as well as a coordinated action plan with the other regulators to stop financial fraud.
Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC), also known as intrusive communication, is a significant cause of public annoyance and violates people’s privacy, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. (TRAI).
“There has been an increase in complaints from Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs), who are marketing various UCC SMS types. Additionally, UCC calls are one of the issues that must be addressed on an equal footing with UCC SMSes “It said.
Appropriate actions are being taken by TRAI in conjunction with various stakeholders to check UCC from UTMs as well. These actions include implementing a UCC detection system, offering digital consent acquisition, intelligently cleansing header and message templates, and utilizing AI and ML, among others, according to the release.
A Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Satisfaction Regulations, 2018 that were released by TRAI to develop a blockchain-based ecosystem to combat the threat of intrusive calls and messages (Distributed Ledger Technology-DLT).
The law requires all telemarketers and commercial promoters to register on the DLT platform and obtain approval from customers to send them different sorts of promotional messages on the days and times of their choosing.
Through registered telemarketers & TSPs employing DLT platforms, over 2.5 lakh major entities, more than 6 lakh headers, and nearly 55 lakh acceptable message templates have been registered under the framework.
According to the regulatory body, the framework has significantly reduced customer complaints for registered telemarketers by 60%. However, annoying callers who are not registered continue to annoy mobile subscribers.
The Security and Exchanges Board of India (Sebi), the Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MoCA), and the Reserve Bank of India have been invited to join TRAI’s Unified Committee on Regulators (JCOR) to develop a joint action plan to stop financial frauds involving telecom resources. “Measures to reduce the UCC further were reviewed in depth at the recent meeting the JCOR held on November 10, 2022, which was also attended by members of the Department for Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA),” according to TRAI.
