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Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India - Section

Section 2 in Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018

2. Definitions.

- In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires-
(a)"Abandoned Call" means an outgoing call in which the sender does not connect the call to a live agent after the call is established and is answered by the recipient.
(b)"Access Providers" includes the Basic Telephone Service Provider, Cellular Mobile Telephone Service Provider, Unified Access Service Provider, Universal Access Service Provider and Virtual Network Operator (VNO) as defined in the respective licenses issued by Department of Telecommunications (DoT);
(c)"Act" means the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997)
(d)"Authority" means the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India established under sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Act;
(e)"Auto Dialer Call" means a call which is initiated automatically by an equipment, in accordance to a stored and/ or programmable instruction(s), to a telephone number(s), already stored or a list auto generated by the software, and once the call has been answered, equipment
(i)either plays a recorded message; or
(ii)connects the call to a live person;
(f)"Bulk" means number of messages or voice calls on the same or similar subject-matter sent, caused to be sent or authorized to be sent in excess of the following limits: -
(i)more than 20 during a twenty-four hours period; or
(ii)more than 100 during a seven days period; or
(iii)more than 300 during a thirty days period;
(g)"Business Day" means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday and a Gazette holiday declared by the Central government;
(h)"Calling Name or Number (CNAM)" means name or number which is presented by the terminating access provider (TAP) to the recipient of a commercial communication which may be the header assigned to the sender or a name or number assigned by the access provider in lieu of header or number;
(i)"Commercial Communication" means any voice call or message using telecommunication services, where the primary purpose is to inform about or advertise or solicit business for
(A)goods or services; or
(B)a supplier or prospective supplier of offered goods or services; or
(C)a business or investment opportunity; or
(D)a provider or prospective provider of such an opportunity;
Explanation. - For the purposes of this regulation it is immaterial whether the goods, services, land or opportunity referred to in the content of the communication exist(s), is/are lawful, or otherwise. Further, the purpose or intent of the communication may be inferred from:
(A)The content of the communication in the message or voice call
(B)The manner in which the content of message or voice call is presented
(C)The content in the communication during call back to phone numbers presented or referred to in the content of message or voice call; or the content presented at the web links included in such communication.
(j)"Consensus" means the concurrence among the participants on a distributed ledger to record an irrevocable data value, which is cryptographically secured;
(k)"Consent" means any voluntary permission given by the customer to sender to receive commercial communication related to specific purpose, product or service. Consent may be explicit or inferred as defined in these regulations;
(l)"Consent Acquirer or CA" means any sender with registered and valid header(s), who acquires consent through a prescribed process under the relevant regulations;
(m)"Consent Register" means a Distributed Ledger for Consent (DL-Consent) having all relevant details of consent acquired by sender, in a secure and safe manner, to send commercial communications and may be required for the purpose of pre and post checks for regulatory compliance based on the consent;
(n)"Consent Registrar or CR" is an authorized entity under relevant regulations responsible for maintaining the consent register, customer consent acquisition facility and customer consent verification facility;
(o)"Consent Template or CT" means a template of content which is presented to the customer while acquiring his consent and clearly mentions purpose of the consent and details of sender;
(p)"Consent Template Register" means a Distributed Ledger for registration of Consent Template (DLTCS) which keeps record of unique consent template identity along with the content of consent template and details of sender who got it registered, in a secure and safe manner;
(q)"Content Template for Transaction" means a template of content registered by any sender with the access provider for sending transactional message, service message or transactional voice call, service call for the purpose of commercial communication and contains content which may be a combination of fixed part of content and variable part of content, where
(i)fixed part of content is that part of content which is common across all commercial communications sent to different recipients for same or similar subject;
(ii)variable part of content is that part of content which may vary across commercial communications sent to different recipients for same or similar subject on account of information which is very specific to the particular transaction for a particular recipient or may vary on account of reference to date, time, place or unique reference number;
(r)"Content Template for Promotion" means a template of content registered by any sender with the access provider for sending promotional message or promotional voice call for the purpose of commercial communication and contains content which is fixed content and common across all commercial communications sent to different recipients for same or similar subject;
(s)"Content Template Register" means a Distributed Ledger for Content Template which keeps records of unique content template identity along with the content of content template and details of sender who got it registered in a safe and secure manner;
(t)"Content Template Registrar" is an authorized entity under the relevant regulations responsible for maintaining the Content template register and Content template registration facility;
(u)"Customer" means subscriber;
(v)"Customer Preference Registration Facility or CPRF" means the facility established by an Access
Provider, under relevant regulations, for the purpose of registration, modifications or de-registration of the preference of its customers in respect of receipt of commercial communications;
(w)"Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT)" means a set of technological solutions that enables a single, sequenced, standardized and cryptographically-secured record of activities to be safely distributed to, and acted upon, by a network of varied participants and their
(i)database can be spread across multiple sites or institutions;
(ii)records are stored one after the other in a continuous ledger and can only be added when the participants reach a consensus;
(x)"Entity Register" means a Distributed Ledger for Entities (DL-Entities) having a records of all entities registered to carry out telemarketing related function(s) with all relevant details.
(y)"Explicit consent" means such consent as has been verified directly from the Recipient in a robust and verifiable manner and recorded by Consent Registrar as defined under these regulations;
(z)"Fully blocked" means stoppage of all types of commercial communication requiring explicit consent except commercial communication sent under inferred consent;
(aa)"Header" means an alphanumeric string of maximum eleven characters or numbers assigned to an individual, business or legal entity under these regulations to send commercial communications;
(ab)"Header Root" means the common sub string of block of headers, starting from the first character;
(ac)"Header Branch" means the sub string of a header other than header root;
(ad)"Header Registration Facility or HRF" means the facility established by Header Registrar, under relevant regulations, for registration or de-registration of the header of any principal entity or content provider for sending commercial communications;
(ae)"Header Register" means a Distributed Ledger for Header (DL-Header) which keeps records of header(s), its purpose of sending commercial communications and details of sender to whom it is assigned in a safe and secure manner;
(af)"Header Registrar" is an authorised entity under relevant regulations responsible for maintaining the header register, header registration facility and header verification facility;
(ag)"Immutable" means data added to the distributed ledger after achieving consensus, which thereafter is unchangeable, secure and preserved for the life of the ledger;
(ah)"Inferred Consent" means any permission that can be reasonably inferred from the customer's conduct or the Relationship between the Recipient and the Sender;
(ai)"Message" shall have the meaning assigned to it in clause (3) of section 3 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (13 of 1885);
(aj)"National Numbering Plan" (NNP) means the National Numbering Plan issued by DoT from time to time;
(ak)"Node" means participants on a distributed ledger having particular rights to read or write data;
(al)"Non-repudiable" means
(i)making available proof of various network-related actions (such as proof of obligation, intent, or commitment; proof of data origin, proof of ownership, proof of resource use) so that an individual or entity cannot deny having performed a particular action;
(ii)ensuring the availability of evidence that can be presented to Authority and used to prove that some kind of event or action has taken place;
(am)"One Time Password or OTP" means an automatically generated random number used to authenticate the action of user for a single transaction or session.
(an)"Originating Access Provider" (OAP) means the Access Provider who has provided the telecom resources to a sender;
(ao)"Permissioned DLT networks" means those DLT networks where participants in the process are preselected and addition of new record on the ledger is checked by a limited consensus process using a digital signature;
(ap)"Preference of Category of Commercial Communication" means preference exercised by the customer to permit only a selected category of commercial communications out of available choices prescribed by relevant regulations;
(aq)"Preference of Mode for Commercial Communication" means preference exercised by the customer to permit commercial communications only through the selected mode of communications from the choices for modes made available in the relevant regulations or code(s) of practice;
(ar)"Preference of Time band and Day type for Commercial Communication" means preference exercised by the customer to permit unsolicited commercial communications only during time slots and type of days out of choices for time band(s) and types of day(s) made available in the relevant regulations;
(as)"Preference Register" means a Distributed Ledger for Preference (DL-Preference) which keeps records of preference(s) of customers about category of content, mode(s) of communication, time band(s), type of day(s) along with the details of customer who has exercised choices of preference(s), day and time such choices or changes in choices were exercised in a safe and secure manner;
(at)"Private DLT networks" means those DLT networks where visibility is restricted to a subset of users;
(au)"Promotional messages" means commercial communication message for which the sender has not taken any explicit consent from the intended Recipient to send such messages;
(av)"Promotional voice call" means commercial communication voice call for which the Sender has not taken any explicit consent from the Recipient to make such voice calls to him;
(aw)"Recipient", in relation to a commercial communication, means an authorised user of the telephone number(s) to whom the message is sent or voice call is made.
Explanation. - Where a recipient of a message or voice call has one or more Telephone numbers in addition to the Telephone number to which the message was sent or voice call was made, the recipient shall be treated as a separate recipient with respect to each such Telephone number;
(ax)"Referred Telephone Number" (RTN) means telephone number or telecom resource referred to in the content of commercial communication messages or voice calls from the sender;
(ay)"Registered Telemarketer (RTM)" means any telemarketer who is registered with the access provider(s) in accordance with the procedure and conditions specified in these regulations.
(az)"Regulations" means the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, unless otherwise indicated;
(ba)"Regulatory Sandbox" means specifically constructed experimental space, with a safe environment, within which various stakeholders can use Regulatory Technology solutions to develop and refine Code(s) of Practice to comply with new regulatory requirements;
(bb)"Relationship" means a prior or existing relationship
(i)for business or commercial reasons, between a person or entity and a subscriber with or without an exchange of consideration,
(ii)on the basis of the purchase or transaction made by or done by the recipient with the sender within the tweleve months immediately preceding the date of the communication; or
(iii)on the basis of inquiry or application regarding products or services made by or submitted by recipient to sender within the three months immediately preceding the date of the receiving of communication, which relationship has not been previously terminated by either party;
(iv)for social reasons, between a person or entity and a subscriber with or without an exchange of consideration, by voluntary two-way communication, initiated from both sides at different points in time;
(bc)"Robo Calls" means any call made to any customer using an artificial or prerecorded voice to interactively deliver a voice message without the involvement of human being on calling side for participating in the dialogue;
(bd)"Scrubber" means an entity registered with the access provider(s) and authorised by the relevant regulations to perform the function of scrubbing in accordance with the relevant regulations;
(be)"Scrubbing" means process of comparing target list of telephone number(s) provided by the Sender, to whom it wishes to send commercial communication with the list of telephone number(s) in DLPreference and DL-Consent to check whether commercial communication(s) can be sent to the Recipient as per his registered preference(s) or as per consent;
(bf)"Sender", in relation to a commercial communication, means
(i)The person or entity who owns the telephone number or the header(s) that were used;
(ii)A person or entity that publicly asserts or uses a Calling Line Identity (CLI) or the phone number(s) referred to in the communication, except where such assertion is fraudulent;
(iii)The person who sent the message or made a voice call, caused the message to be sent or the voice call to be made or authorized the sending of the message or making of the voice call;
(iv)The person or legal entity dealing with goods, or services, or land or property, or a business or investment opportunity that is offered or promoted; except where such entity maintains a distinct legal identity for the division or line of business dealing with offered goods, services or opportunity, in which case such division or line of business;
(bg)"Sender information or SI" means the source, destination and routing information attached to a message or voice call, including, where applicable, the originator's name and originating phone number, reference telephone number, and any other information that appears in the content of commercial communication identifying, or purporting to identify, the sender of the message or making voice call;
(bh)"Service message or Service Call" means a message sent to a recipient or voice call made to recipient either with his consent or using a template registered for the purpose, the primary purpose of which is-
(i)to facilitate, complete, or confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously consented to enter into with the sender; or
(ii)to provide warranty information, product recall information, safety or security information with respect to a commercial product or service used or purchased by the recipient;
to provide -
(A)notification concerning a change in the terms or features of; or
(B)notification of a change in the recipient's standing or status with respect to; or
(C)at regular periodic intervals, account balance information or other type of account statement with respect to, a subscription, membership, account, loan, or comparable ongoing; or
(D)commercial relationship involving the ongoing purchase or use by the recipient of products or services offered by the sender; or
(E)information directly related to an employment relationship or related benefit plan in which the Recipient is currently involved, participating, or enrolled; or
(F)information relating to delivery of goods or services, including product updates or upgrades, that the recipient is entitled to receive under the terms of a transaction that the recipient has previously consented to enter into with the sender;
(bi)"Signature" means pattern in communications from particular telephone number(s) or telecom resource(s) or person, entity which are not registered with the access provider(s) for commercial communication purposes and also includes pattern in communications from particular sender(s), who are registered with the access provider(s) but not authorised to send commercial communication of particular type or for specific purpose(s) which may require additional authorisations from relevant Government or statutory bodies to send such commercial communications;
(bj)"Silent Call" means any unsolicited call made by a person or an entity to a customer for a very short duration in which either called party has not yet been alerted by his or her device, or it is very unlikely to be answered, wherein the intention of caller is to get call back from called party and then enter into commercial communication;
(bk)"Smart contract" means a functionality of intelligent and programmable code which can execute predetermined commands or business rules set to pre-check regulatory compliance without further human intervention and suitable for DLT system to create a digital agreement, with cryptographic certainty that the agreement has been honored in the ledgers, databases or accounts of all parties to the agreement;
(bl)"Smartphone" means a device with large display, predominantly with touch screen technology, fast processor and memory in the GB range. A fully-featured Operating System or platform that provides voice and data communications capabilities, enables personalization of the device by the user and in addition supports installation and maintenance of mobile applications e.g., downloadable from an Application store.
(bm)"SMS" means a message which is sent through short message service and includes a Multi-Media message which is sent through Multi-Media message service (MMS);
(bn)"Subscriber" means a person or legal entity who subscribes to a telecom service provided by an Access Provider;
(bo)"Telecom resources" means any telegraph used to send voice call or messages;
(bp)"Telemarketer" means a person or legal entity engaged in the activity of transmission or delivery of commercial communication or scrubbing or aggregation.
(bq)"Telephone number" means a number which may or may not have been assigned to the subscriber of a Public Switched Telecom Network (PSTN) or a wireless access network or a mobile network from a numbering series already assigned to a telecom service providers to which either an SMS or MMS can be sent, or Voice calls can be made.
Explanation. - For the purposes of these regulations, it is immaterial whether the telephone number is actually assigned to any customer or not or has ceased to exist;
(br)"Telephone number harvesting software" means software that is specifically designed or marketed for use in -
(i)searching the Internet, directories, contact lists in devices for telephone numbers; and
(ii)collecting, compiling, capturing or otherwise harvesting those telephone numbers;
(iii)generating most likely valid telephone numbers using automated means;
(bs)"Terminating Access Provider" (TAP) means the Access Provider of which Recipient of commercial communication is a Subscriber;
(bt)"Transactional message" means a message triggered by a transaction performed by the Subscriber, who is also the Sender's customer, provided such a message is sent within thirty minutes of the transaction being performed and is directly related to it.
Provided that the transaction may be a banking transaction, delivery of OTP, purchase of goods or services, etc.
(bu)"Transactional Voice Call" means a voice call which is not promotional in nature and is for the purpose of alerts to its own customers or account holders and information to be communicated by the voice call is time critical in the nature;
(bv)"Unregistered Telemarketer" (UTM) means any Sender of commercial communication who is not registered for the purpose of telemarketing with the access provider(s);
(bw)"Unsolicited commercial communication or UCC" means any commercial communication that is neither as per the consent nor as per registered preference(s) of recipient, but shall not include:
(i)Any transactional message or transactional voice call;
(ii)Any service message or service voice call;
(iii)Any message or voice calls transmitted on the directions of the Central Government or the State Government or bodies established under the Constitution, when such communication is in Public Interest;
(iv)Any message or voice calls transmitted by or on the direction of the Authority or by an agency expressly authorized for the purpose by the Authority.
(bx)"Usage Cap" means a limit put on a telephone number for making a maximum of twenty outgoing voice calls per day and a maximum of twenty outgoing messages per day.
Chapter-II Commercial Communication Through Access Provider Network