In the works: Plan to fix criminal liability on pesky callers

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Exasperated after years of largely futile efforts to contain pesky calls, the government is going to soon categorise such calls and sundry unsolicited commercial communication as unfair trade practices, one of the key objectives of the exercise being a check on the web of financial frauds that are spreading tentacles through mobile phones, The Economic Times has reported. Once the step is taken, senders of these messages and callers would become criminally liable under consumer protection laws.

The guidelines that the Department of Consumer Affairs is formulating might be ready in a couple of months.

Different estimates put India as one of the biggest markets for SMS phishing. A growing number of users of mobile phones and relatively low phone tariffs have aided this trend.

In the week beginning May 6 the guidelines came up for discussion in a meeting between the Department of Consumer Affairs, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), representatives of telcos such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and industry association COAI.

“Unwarranted or unsolicited commercial communication is misleading and an unfair trade practice under section 2(28) and 2(47) of Consumer Protection Act, 2019 respectively. In case they don’t use the proper channel, they will be held liable for prosecution, as per the Consumer Affairs Act,” a senior bureaucrat told the newspaper.

The new guidelines would pin responsibility and accountability on the callers and entities such as banks, real estate developers and other consumer-centric businesses on behalf of which such communication is being made.

Needless to emphasise, the new guidelines would also define what qualifies as a pesky or fraudulent call. It would also lay down what type of communication would be treated as “unsolicited or unwarranted”.

The incidence of pesky calls in so high that industry estimates state that one of every 12 persons is face phishing every month. More than 12-15 crore phishing messages are sent out every month making 6-7.5 crore unique citizens vulnerable to such attacks. An astronomical 3 lakh persons are scammed in the process. However, only 35,000-45,000 individuals report these incidents.

A senior executive of a telecom company who attended the meeting last week told the newspaper that carriers highlighted the point that principal entities that outsource their communication mandates to telemarketers should be responsible. “There have been instances when headers and message templates of principal entities are being misused by some telemarketers. It should be checked,” said this executive on conditions of anonymity.

The Department of Consumer Affairs in February constituted a committee to draft guidelines on the issue of unwarranted and unsolicited commercial communication. What was discussed last week was the first draft of the guidelines. It looks like a multi-pronged strategy is in the making.

“Operators and telemarketers are already governed as per the current regulations concerning pesky communications. In addition to that, the new guidelines will look into the aspects such as the legal arrangement between telemarketers and operators with principal entities like banks,” a TRAI official told the newspaper.