400 million calls daily: Trai mulls tougher spam rules

With telecom operators now blocking or flagging nearly 400 million suspected spam calls and messages every day, India’s telecom regulator is looking to widen its current enforcement framework alongside a willingness to tighten the rules if gaps persist, while moving toward a full roll-out of a digital consent system for commercial communications.

- Jatin Grover [e-mail]

In an interview with Mint, Anil Kumar Lahoti, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), said the regulator is reviewing the existing framework governing telemarketers to identify areas where responsibilities are not being met, and is open to strengthening the rules if required. Lahoti also said Trai is moving toward a full rollout of the Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) framework, beginning with banks, after pilot results showed the system worked technically. Lahoti, who completed two years in office last month, added that recommendations for the next spectrum auction have entered the final stages and are expected to be submitted to the Centre within a month.

Trai has taken many measures to reduce the number of unsolicited commercial communication over the last year and a half.

‘The commercial communication today is taking place through registered telemarketers. Currently, every commercial call or message is scrubbed against the customer's preference register. As a result, approximately 75 million calls or SMS are blocked daily.