Trai announces pilot project for digital consent management

The telecom regulatory authority of India on Monday announced a pilot project for digital consent management in coordination with the Reserve Bank of India.

The project involves select banks and will operate under the regulatory sandbox framework, in a bid to validate the operational, technical, and regulatory aspect of the consent registration function.

The initiative will help businesses seek consent digitally from consumers before sending them commercial calls and messages.

This comes after the regulator had asked businesses to acquire consent digitally and register it in a secure and interoperable digital consent registry maintained by telecom operators for easy verification.

The pilot project will lay the foundation for sector-wise implementation of the digital consent ecosystem.

Under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCPR), businesses can make commercial calls and messages if they have explicit consent from consumers, even if the consumer's Do Not Disturb (DND) preferences are set.

However, many consents were collected through offline and unverified means, making their validity and genuineness difficult to ascertain.