The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has notified new regulations this week that aim to curb the menace of unsolicited calls.

Earlier in May, the regulator had published draft norms that proposed using blockchain technology to ensure that telemarketing messages are sent only to subscribers.

In a press release dated July 19, TRAI said that new regulations would encourage adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), commonly known as blockchain, to ensure regulatory compliance while allowing innovation in the market.

According to the official notification:

“The Authority has decided that Access Providers should adopt Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) as Regulatory Technology to develop core of entire UCC [Unsolicited Commercial Communication] eco system, and design solutions around it for meeting the regulatory objectives and requirements of codes of practice.”

According to Financial Express, the technology would help record details relating to entities, headers, consent, content template, etc. on a ledger and ensure compliance with all necessary regulatory pre-checks. This essentially means that telecom operators will have to build and deploy their own blockchain network, or implement the technology in collaboration with other operators.

For subscribers, this would mean that they will get the option to register their preferences for commercial communication as well as change their preferences according to their requirements.

The new regulations also allows for the creation of a regulatory sandbox “for testing implementation of regulatory checks using DLT networks and other technological solutions.”