The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) seeks to leverage blockchain technology to curb spam calls and SMSes, The Economic Times reported.

The regulator has published new draft norms that outline using blockchain technology to ensure that telemarketing messages are sent only to subscribers.

The Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation, 2018 proposes adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT), commonly known as blockchain, as the “RegTech to enforce regulatory compliance while allowing innovation in the market.”

“Blockchain has proven useful where the objective is to cryptographically secure information and make it available only on need to know basis. Yet none may deny their actions or tamper with records, once recorded on the distributed ledger, which uniformly enforces compliance,” the draft reads. “It appears to be the first instance anywhere in the world to use this technology at such a scale in the telcom sector.”

The new regulation draft is open for public comment until June 11, 2018.

"Blockchain will ensure two things -- non- repudiative and confidentiality. Only those authorised to access details will be able to access subscriber details and only when they need to deliver service... Trai will become first organisation to implement this kind of regulation," TRAI Chairman RS Sharma told reporters.