Blockchain technology to curb spam calls and messages; TRAI forms joint committee

The Central government is preparing to curb spam calls and messages with blockchain technology soon.  o curb the menace of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC), TRA  issued the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations,--  which put in place a framework for controlling UCC. With its implementation in a co-regulatory manner with support from all Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), an ecosystem based on blockchain (Distributed Ledger Technology-DLT) has been created. DLT has given transparency amongst telecom service providers and the regulator in the management of UCC/spam.

The Regulation has mandated registration of all commercial promoters and telemarketers to register on DLT platform and seek customer consent for receiving various kinds of promotional messages at time and day of their choice. 

There are about 2,50,000 principal entities registered with more than 6,00,000 headers and aroun .55,00,000 approved message templates which are being pushed to consumers through registered Tele Marketers and TSPs using DLT platforms. This has resulted in substantial reduction of customer complaints to the extent of 60 per cent for Registered Tele Marketers (RTMs). 

Now complaints are reported against Unregistered Tele Marketers (UTMs), where surge has been seen in pushing various kinds of UCC SMSs. Additionally, UCC calls are also one of the concerns which need to be dealt equally along with UCC SMSs.

TRAI in coordination with various stakeholders is taking necessary steps to check Unsolicited Commercial Communication from Unregistered Tele Marketers also. These steps include- implementation of UCC detect system, provision of Digital Consent Acquisition, intelligent scrubbing of the Headers & Message templates, using AI (Artificial Intelligence) & ML (Machine Language), etc.

TRAI has further taken an initiative to form a Joint Committee of Regulators (JCOR) consisting of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities & Exchanges Board of India (SEBI) and Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MoCA) to frame joint action plan to curb financial frauds using Telecom resources.