New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has amended the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018 to strengthen consumer protection against Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC).
Following the amendments by TRAI, consumers will now be able to make complaints against spam (UCC) calls and messages sent by unregistered senders without the requirement to first register their preferences for blocking or receiving commercial communications.
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 such as number of the complainants, and the number of Sender from which the Spam/UCC has been received, the date on which spam is received and a brief about the UCC Voice Call/Message, the complaint shall be treated as a valid complaint. Access Provider can collect additional information from the complainant to support the investigation.
Further, a customer can now make a complaint about spam/ UCC within 7 days of receiving spam as compared to the earlier 3-day time limit.
The access providers have been mandated to display the options for registering spam/UCC complaints at a prominent and easy-to-find place in their mobile App and Web portal. Additionally, their mobile App should be able to auto-capture call logs, and SMS details after obtaining permission from the subscriber and extract necessary details through it for complaint registration. Moreover, the mobile app should also have the facility to register complaints using screenshots provided by the complaint.
The time limit for taking action by the access providers against the UCC from unregistered senders has been reduced from 30 days to 5 days.
To ensure prompt action against the senders of UCC, the criterion for taking action against them has been revised and made more stringent. As compared to the earlier criterion of ‘having 10 complaints against the sender in last 7 days’ to trigger action, it has been modified to “having 5 complaints against the sender in last 10 days’.
“This would enable faster action and at the same time, cover more number of spammers,” TRAI stated today.
Besides the above-mentioned steps, the following stringent measures will now be taken against spammers/ senders of unsolicited commercial communications:
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- Access providers must suspend all telecom resources of a sender found guilty of repeated violations. For the first violation of the regulatory threshold, outgoing services of all telecom resources of the sender will be barred for 15 days. For subsequent violations, all telecom resources of the sender, including PRI/SIP trunks, will be disconnected across all access providers for one year and the sender will be blacklisted.
- Any call made or message sent to deceive or attempt to deceive customers has been classified as UCC so far as misuse of telecom resources is concerned, thereby, enabling quick regulatory action against the telecom resources of the sender of such communication, including disconnection and blacklisting. This amendment will make the disconnection of such telecom resources swift due to the use of blockchain-based technology.
- The amendment restricts senders from using normal 10-digit numbers for telemarketing, ensuring that all commercial communications originate from designated headers or specific number series. While the 140 series will continue to be used for promotional calls, the newly allocated 1600 series is designated for transactional and service calls, with implementation already in progress. This change enables recipients to easily identify the type of commercial communication based on the Caller Line Identification (CLI).
In case of failure of the access providers to implement these regulations, TRAI has now made provisions for imposing financial disincentives in a graded manner have been introduced. A financial disincentive (FD) of Rs 2 lakh for the first instance of violation, Rs 5 lakh for the second instance of violation and Rs 10 lakh per instance for subsequent instances of violation, shall be imposed on access providers in case of misreporting of the count of UCC. These FDs shall be imposed separately for registered and unregistered senders. Moreover, these FDs will be in addition to the FD imposed on access providers against invalid closure of complaints, and not fulfilling their obligations regarding registration of Message Headers and Content Templates.
The Access Providers have been enabled to prescribe a security deposit for the senders and telemarketers, which can be forfeited in case of violation of regulations by the senders and telemarketers. To make the provision more effective, access providers have been mandated to enter into a legally binding agreement with all the registered Senders and Telemarketers wherein their roles and responsibilities and actions that can be taken against them in case of non-compliance, shall be incorporated.
– global bihari bureau
