Will TRAI and RBI's pilot empower customers to manage promotional consent?
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
New Delhi, Dec 10 (NationPress) - The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) announced on Wednesday that telecom service providers (TSPs) will soon dispatch SMS notifications to a select group of customers, enabling them to digitally review, manage, and revoke the consents they had previously granted for promotional communications.
This initiative is part of the joint TRAI–RBI Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) pilot, aimed at digitizing and standardizing consent for promotional communications. SMS notifications will be sent to a limited number of select customers, as per the Ministry of Communications.
The pilot program involves nine TSPs and eleven major banks, addressing existing gaps in traditional consent practices and testing the readiness of the unified digital consent platform ahead of a broader implementation.
The participating banks include SBI, PNB, Axis Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, and Punjab & Sind Bank, according to the ministry.
As part of system testing, customers who have previously uploaded their old consents may receive SMS notifications from the short code 127000 sent by their respective TSPs.
These notifications will be targeted at a limited subset of customers whose consents have been uploaded by the banks on the digital platform and are intended to evaluate platform readiness across TSPs, banks, and the consent registry.
Customers who do not receive these messages need not worry, as the pilot is currently limited in scope and is designed for full-scale rollout at a later stage.
Each SMS will include a standardized advisory message along with a secure link directing customers to the authorized Consent Management Page of their TSP.
Through this portal, customers can view the consents recorded by the eleven banks against their mobile numbers and determine if they wish to continue with, modify, or revoke any of these consents.
The visible consents on the portal will display all old consents uploaded by the participating banks. No personal or financial information will be requested at any point, and customers are encouraged to respond only to SMS communications received from the short code 127000. Taking action based on these SMS messages is voluntary; however, customers wishing to modify their consents displayed on the portal can do so.
The banks have commenced uploading sample sets of old consents onto the shared digital platform designated for this pilot. In addition, new consents acquired by the participating banks will also be uploaded to the digital platform, as stated by the ministry.