The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Tuesday asked telecom operators to ensure that trail of all messages from senders to recipients is traceable. The same is being done to curb the spam messages and block any unregistered telemarketer.
Telcos have been asked to enable traceability from November 1.
The move from Trai assumes significance as the regulator has lately been issuing directions to telcos to curb unauthorised telemarketers indulging in promotional calls and messages to telecom subscribers. The same is also crucial for preventing users against frauds.
According to Trai, these measures will ensure a clean and secure messaging ecosystem, safeguarding consumer interests and preventing fraudulent activities.
Last week, Trai directed telcos to disconnect all telecom resources of unregistered telemarketers found making spam calls, and to blacklist them for up to two years.
“Effective from September 1, 2024, all access service providers will be prohibited from transmitting messages containing URLs, APKs, OTT links, or call back numbers which are not whitelisted by the senders,” Trai said in its directions.
The regulator has also introduced punitive measures to deter the misuse of templates for promotional content. “Content templates registered under the wrong category will be blacklisted, and repeated offences will lead to a one month suspension of the sender’s services,” Trai said.
In case misuse of headers or content templates of any sender comes to the notice, Trai has directed immediate suspension of traffic from all the headers and content templates of that sender for their verification.
To ensure compliance with regulations, all message headers and content templates registered on DLT (distributed ledger technology) must adhere to prescribed guidelines. Additionally, a single content template cannot be linked to multiple headers, Trai said.
Headers are assigned to business entities for the purpose of sending out commercial communications.
Besides, Trai has also mandated telcos to migrate telemarketing calls starting with 140 series to online DLT platform latest by September 30 for better monitoring and control.