Starting September 1, consumers of banks, financial institutions, and e-commerce companies may face interruptions in receiving service and transactional messages on their mobile devices, according to The Times of India report. This is due to a new directive by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) aimed at curbing spam, particularly phishing attempts.
Trai has ordered telecom companies to stop transmitting messages containing URLs, OTT links, APK files (Android application packages), or call-back numbers unless they have been whitelisted — registered with telecom providers — by the senders by September 1, the report said.
This directive requires banks, financial institutions, and online platforms to register their message templates and content with telecom operators by August 31. If they fail to comply, messages containing such elements will be blocked.
What will change?
Currently, entities register their headers and templates with telecom providers, but the actual message content isn’t monitored. Starting next month, however, telecom operators will need to implement a system to inspect the content of commercial messages and block those that don’t align with their records, according to experts.
Industry data indicates that in India, 1.5-1.7 billion commercial messages are sent daily, amounting to around 55 billion each month.
Telecom majors seek deadline extension
According to a report by the Economic Times, telecom companies are asking Trai for more time to implement the mandate as their blockchain-based distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform needs updates. However, officials familiar with the situation indicate that the regulator believes sufficient time has already been provided and is not inclined to extend the deadline, mentioned the news report.
Understanding whitelisting
Whitelisting requires entities sending messages to provide all relevant details, such as URLs and call-back numbers, to telecom providers, who will then input this data into their DLT platform. If the information matches, the message will be transmitted; otherwise, it will be blocked. For example, most transactional messages from banks, like those indicating a debit or credit, contain a call-back number. These messages will be blocked if the bank fails to whitelist the number.
A similar issue occurred in March 2021 when the DLT platform was first implemented, and telecom providers began filtering messages. At that time, widespread disruptions occurred as telecom providers blocked all commercial messages that didn’t contain whitelisted headers and templates. Since that disruption, all entities have registered their headers and templates with telecom providers.
First Published: Aug 26 2024 | 4:31 PM IST
