The telecom authority in India wants to use blockchain to block fraudulent calls

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is proposing the use of blockchain technology to deter fraudulent calls.
• The use of digital ledgers will ensure ‘non-repudiation’ and ‘confidentiality’ according to the Chairman of TRAI.
  
• Blockchain rules will record all the communication between users and telemarketers.

Despite users activating the ‘Do Not Disturb’ (DND) service on their connections, unsolicited commercial calls seep through. And as a solution to this, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) wants to use blockchain to keep a check on spam calls.

The current issue with tracking spammers is that they’ve been using 10-digit mobile numbers rather than the special numbering series that are specifically allotted for telemarketing. But, if you apply blockchain technology to the same problem then the entire communication between entities would be on record.

How?

Basically, because of what blockchain does. It’s a digital ledger that’s programmed to virtually record anything that’s deemed of value.

So the blockchain-based rules in this situation will record all the communication between users and telemarketers and this includes capturing customer consent for information. Consent, that users can revoke at any time that they deem fit without being answerable to anyone.

That being said, how this consent will be attained hasn’t yet been finalised. According to reports, TRAI has various methods as its disposal and is currently deliberating between them. Either way, the draft regulations clearly state that explicit consent is prerequisite for unsolicited commercial communication. Which, again, have to be followed up with regular reviews.

All of this is in an attempt to ensure ‘non-repudiation’ and ‘confidentiality’. In its essence, a step towards keeping things on the up-and-up or as transparent as possible. Which makes sense since information will be secured cryptographically and no entity will be able to ‘deny’ their actions or tamper with the data.

According to RS Sharma, chairman of TRAI, only authorised entities will have access to subscriber details and only they will be permitted to use them to deliver specified services.

The public is welcome to participate and add their two bits with the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations 2018 draft which is open for comments till 11 June. After taking suggestions and comments into consideration, TRAI will put the official rules forward by July. Even after that, there will first be a demonstration of the project before official deployment.

Over the last six months alone, the amount of fraudulent calls that financially prey on users have doubled. The DND registry has been in place since 2010, but hasn’t been very effective in filtering spam calls for its 230 million subscribers.