India’s telecoms is turning to blockchain technology to restrict annoying telemarketing calls and messages.

On May 30, The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has published the draft guidelines to protect consumers from spamming contents, according to Economic Times.

The regulators shared that there is around 1.19 billion telecom users in December 2017. Unknown calls and SMSes are not only troublesome but also a treat with several cases of illegal content or shady investment promotions. TRAI and other telecoms tried many times but the issue is still far from being under control. Even largely the telemarketers registered their business, many customers still receive such disturbing SMSes.

The draft titled “Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018” is expected to bring the consumers their control and privacy in receiving any communication. Subscribers can either choose to opt in or out of their subscription any time.  

As shared with media, TRAI is trying to adopt blockchain technology for the system to carry out regulatory compliance while apply the innovation to the market. In the future, blockchain system will record all the content between subscriber and telecom companies to serve as a evidence of user’s consent for all the communication.

The planned regulation will first be implemented in a regulatory sandbox, where users test to receive and block the spamming contents in order to examine the efficiency of the system before applying it to real life.

The ‘Telecom Commercial Customer Preference Regulation’ draft will be reopened for further feedback till June 11.