IRDAI vide circular dated September 15, 2023 has notified about the directions issued by The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) dated February 16, 2023, May 12, 2023 and June 02, 2023, requiring all Principal Entities (PEs) and Access Providers (APs) to adopt measures to curb misuse of Headers and Content Templates under The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018.
Summary of the directions issued by TRAI:
- TRAI had issued a direction dated February 16, 2023 requiring all PEs like banks, other financial institutions, insurance companies etc. to get their headers and content templates registered with the APs in the manner as specified. Further, all APs have been directed to re-verify all registered headers and content templates to ensure there is no misuse of Headers and/or Content Templates
- Consequent to the above directions, TRAI received representations from various PEs and APs highlighting challenges in the implementation of the referred directions. Accordingly, TRAI vide communication dated May 12, 2023 issued the following clarifications addressed to the APs:
- In special circumstances and on requisition of reasons and proper justification from PE, allow more than 3 variables in the content templates subject to specified conditions
- Where it is not possible to put the contents of a variable within the limit of 30 characters, then allow more than one contiguous variable of the same type, after proper examination and justifications supported by the sample message
- Only whitelisted URLs/APKs/OTT links/call back numbers shall be allowed in the content template
- In case of URL containing both fixed and variable parts, ensure the fixed part of URL is whitelisted
- Monitor the use of content templates and further, stop any misuse of special templates
- Update the Code of Practice accordingly and furnish a compliance report
- In furtherance to the above referred directions, TRAI issued another communication dated June 2, 2023 incorporating the below directions to all APs:
- All commercial communication sent through SMS is subjected to scrubbing against content template registered by PEs
- No promotional messages are sent under service message category
- Develop a Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) facility for registering/revoking consent as well as register unwillingness of the customers to receive any consent message initiated by PEs
- Ensure compliance with the above referred directions
Source category: IRDAI
Attachments
- /2023/265_TRAI_Directions_(2).pdf
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