Consent-seeking tech top Trai pick to curb pesky calls

Digital content authorisation will involve taking customers’ consent for the brands or companies they would like to receive communication from

- SUBHAYAN CHAKRABORTY New Delhi, 16 March

Digital content authorisation (DCA) is emerging as the favourite among a long list of technologies being researched by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for reducing pesky calls. It is expected to be rolled out first on a pilot basis in another two months, officials said.

Focusing on what is termed as unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) through spam calls and messages, the list of technologies include a "UCC detect system" and the intelligent scrubbing deploying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine language (ML) of the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform used by telecom service providers (TSPs).

Among these, the DCA technology has won the highest approval from government stakeholders. DCA will take customers' consent for the brands or companies they would like to receive communication from. It will also speed up the process of receiving consumer consent on DLT platforms.

"The product is in advanced testing. It may be made available for release into the public network on a trial basis, but it has proven to be capable of meeting the challenge of dealing with spam calls," a Trai official said.

DLT platforms are digital systems for keeping and managing the record of sender IDs and templates. In India, they are run by TSPs such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Bharat Sanchar Nigam.