The Ministry of Communications (MoC), on December 10, 2025, notified regarding the SMS Notifications under the Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) Pilot to select customers (limited in number) brought under the pilot.
The following has been stated namely: -
• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) announced today that under the joint TRAI–RBI Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) pilot to digitize and standardize consent for promotional communications, SMS notifications will begin to be sent shortly to select customers (limited in number) by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs). The pilot, starting with nine TSPs and eleven major banks, will allow this set of customers to digitally review, manage, and revoke the consents they had previously given for promotional communications. This pilot initiative aims to address long-standing gaps in legacy consent practices and test the readiness of the unified digital consent platform before nationwide rollout.
• The existing regulations (Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018) allow customers to block promotional calls and messages based on categories of callers belonging to different sectors. At the same time, the regulations also empower the customers to selectively allow promotional communications from specific businesses and entities as per their choice. The regulations prescribe a Digital Consent Registry for this purpose, which business entities are expected to use for recording customer consents for receiving promotional communications. However, need for onboarding of the legacy consents taken previously through paper-based forms or through their digital systems at consumer outlets remained a deterrent in the effective adoption of these provisions. This resulted in fragmented, opaque, and non-standardised practices. The mechanism adopted so far also does not provide customers with the means to view or revoke the legacy consents, i.e. the consents that they have given to various business entities. Therefore, despite the consent framework envisaged under TCCCPR 2018, full implementation could not be achieved due to the challenge of uploading and validating large volumes of legacy consents.
• To introduce transparency in consent practices and to empower customers with the ability to review, manage, or revoke such consents at any time, TRAI, in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has undertaken a Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) pilot. This initiative aims to provide consumers with a unified digital interface for consent management and to ensure that promotional communications are discontinued if customers revoke their consents.
[Press Release ID: 2201612]
