The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has launched a pilot where selected customers will receive an SMS to continue, modify or revoke consent for promotional communications under the Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) process.
Launched in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the pilot begins with nine telecom service providers (TSPs) and eleven major banks, including State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and others, that have completed necessary technical integration.
Secure Mechanism for Consent Management
Under the initiative, selected customers will receive an SMS from the short code ‘127000’, directing them to a secure consent-management page. There, they can view all previously recorded consents including older, paper-based ones and choose to continue, modify or revoke them. No personal or financial data will be requested.
Closing the Gap in Consent Transparency
While existing rules under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, allow consumers to block or allow promotional communications, they do not provide a mechanism for users to examine or revoke legacy offline consents. This gap impacted consumer control and transparency, Trai said.
The pilot is currently limited to a select group of customers whose consents have been digitised by the participating banks and TSPs.