TRAI Further Tightens Rules To Curb Spam Calls, SMS; Warns Telcos Of Fine Up To Rs 10 Lakh

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday strengthened regulations dealing with unsolicited commercial calls and SMSes by introducing amendments to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations of 2018, while warning telecom firms of fine of up to Rs 10 lakh on failure to implement them.

The revised regulations aim to deal with evolving methods of misuse of telecom resources and promote a more transparent commercial communication ecosystem for consumers.

TRAI has said that in case telecom operators fail to implement these regulations, financial disincentives up to Rs 10 lakh can be imposed. Provisions for imposing financial disincentives in a graded manner have been introduced in the regulations.

"A financial disincentive of Rs 2 lakh for first instance of violation, Rs 5 lakh for second instance of violation and Rs 10 lakh per instance for subsequent instances of violation, shall be imposed on access providers," TRAI said.

In addition, the regulator has mandated all telecom operators to analyse call and SMS patterns based on parameters such as unusually high call volumes, short call durations, and low incoming-to-outgoing call ratios to flag potential spammers in real-time.

To enable an ease of reporting spam calls for consumers, the regulator has said that complaints can now be made directly through its DND mobile application within seven days of receiving the spam as compared to the earlier three-day time limit. Moreover, the time limit within which telcos can take action against these complaints has been brought down from 30 days to five days.

"To make the complaint process simpler and more effective, it has been mandated that if a complaint made by a customer contains bare minimum essential data...the complaint shall be treated as a valid complaint," the regulator said.

• Telcos will now have to provide a mandatory opt-out option from promotional messages, using which a customer may opt out of receiving such messages.

• Telcos will have to suspend all telecom resources of a sender found guilty of repeated violations of spam calls and SMSes.

• Telemarketers will be restricted from calling and sending messages using normal 10-digit numbers.  While the 140 series will continue to be used for promotional calls, the newly allocated 1600 series is designated for transactional and service calls.

• Standardised headers have been introduced so that customers can ascertain the nature of text messages sent.  "-P", "-S", "-T", and "-G" will be suffixed to the message header for identification of promotional, service, transactional, and government messages, respectively.

• Telcos have been mandated to enter into legally binding agreements with telemarketers so as to outline their liabilities in cases of non-compliance.

• Telemarketers will be required to undergo physical verification, biometric authentication, and unique mobile number linking during their registration.