Syllabus: GS3/Cybersecurity
Context
- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will be using distributed ledger technology (DLT) to register spam preferences from customers.
About
- Spam rules will be tightened to make commercial messages traceable, the TRAI has indicated.
- Spam messages and calls refer to unwanted, unsolicited communications typically sent for advertising, scams, or other malicious purposes.
Concerns of the Spam
- Privacy Invasion: Spam calls and messages often lead to a breach of personal privacy, as they can involve unwanted sharing of personal information.
- Scams and Fraud: Many spam messages and calls are used to deceive individuals into sharing sensitive data (like bank details), leading to financial loss and identity theft.
- Overload and Disruption: The sheer volume of spam messages and calls can overwhelm users, disrupt daily life, and cause annoyance.
- Regulatory Challenges: While there are laws like the TRAI guidelines to curb spam, enforcement is often weak, and new tactics from spammers outpace regulatory efforts.
- Lack of Awareness: Many people, especially in rural areas, are unaware of how to block or report spam, making them more vulnerable to scams.
Regulations of Spam in India:
- The TRAI regulates the telecom industry, and its main role is in regulating Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC), the official name for spam.
- DND Registry: Starting in 2007, the regulator implemented a do-not-disturb (DND) registry, if a telecom customer signs up to the DND registry, they are not supposed to get any spam calls or SMS messages.
- TCCCPR 2018: Under the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), 2018, telemarketers who called or sent messages to DND-registered customers would receive warnings.
- In case and if enough warnings accumulated, they would be blacklisted from sending messages to telecom operators.
- In 2024, TRAI mandated that DND reporting be made available on every telecom provider’s app.
Distributed ledger technology (DLT)
- TRAI has mandated the telcos to use a blockchain ledger, also known as a distributed ledger.
- Blockchain as a technology allows for so-called immutability, which means that every stakeholder involved in a transaction has a reliable, un-tamperable version of the same data.
- Features:
- It will store a constantly-updated list of approved senders of SMS messages.
- Telcos would also be required to approve specific formats of messages.
- This has been one of the most stringent rules that have been issued to fight SMS spam anywhere in the world.
- Significance:
- This will make sure that telcos would have a complete record of who issued a message before it is sent to an SMS gateway.
- This was aimed at plugging a crucial flaw in the system that would allow anyone to register on the blockchain solutions.
Other Measures to Flag Spams:
- Sanchar Saathi Portal: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has launched the Sanchar Saathi portal, which has a reporting site called Chakshu.
- DoT has partnered with law enforcement, banks, and other stakeholders in order to accept reports of “suspected fraudulent” calls and messages.
- It has moved to cancel lakhs of numbers that are associated with unauthorised telemarketers and scammers.
- It also set up the Telecom Security Operation Centre at its New Delhi headquarters to monitor suspicious internet traffic in real time.
- Firms like Airtel have taken steps to declare suspicious calls using Artificial Intelligence as “Suspected Spam,” a move that is being replicated by other telcos as well.
- The telco has also started labelling international calls on smartphones.
Source: TH
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