TRAI pushes OTP traceability deadline to December 1 to prevent service disruptions

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has postponed the implementation of traceability requirements for business messages sent via OTPs, moving the deadline from November 1 to December 1 of this year. This extension aims to address issues related to spam and phishing while allowing telecom operators to resolve potential service disruptions.

The TRAI's decision came after telecom companies expressed concerns about the impact of the traceability rule, warning that its enforcement from the initial date could result in significant message blockages. Many businesses, including banks and telemarketers, are reportedly not yet equipped to handle the new regulations, leading to fears that critical messages, such as OTPs, might be inadvertently cancelled.

Under the revised timeline, unregulated messages will be blocked starting December 1. To facilitate compliance, telecom companies will provide daily status updates to telemarketers and principal entities (PEs), enabling them to make necessary adjustments ahead of the new deadline.

With daily commercial messages estimated between 1.5 billion and 1.7 billion, the TRAI’s decision seeks to prevent widespread disruptions. The regulator has also instructed telecom carriers to complete the PE chain for telemarketing and to issue daily reminders to companies that are not in compliance. Messages that fall outside of defined telemarketing chains will be rejected starting December 1.

This marks the second extension granted by TRAI to ensure adherence to these regulations. Additionally, the regulator has implemented a whitelisting requirement for messages containing registered URLs and callback numbers. Recently, TRAI mandated that all telemarketing calls beginning with “140xx” migrate to a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform.