The telecom regulator’s latest directive on commercial SMSes has been challenged in the Supreme Court for violating citizens’ fundamental right to privacy by creating a mega database of user preferences, consent and content of SMS received on a mobile number and sharing it across multiple business entities.

PIL in SC seeks scrapping of Trai’s new regulation on checking pesky calls/SMSesNew Delhi: The telecom regulator’s latest directive on commercial SMSes has been challenged in the Supreme Court for violating citizens’ fundamental right to privacy by creating a mega database of user preferences, consent and content of SMS received on a mobile number and sharing it across multiple business entities.

“This regulation infringes upon the privacy of individuals at all levels, by creating a priceless, mega database of commercial relationships, habits and preferences of each and every mobile phone user, that is more than a 100-crore individuals,” according to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Reepak Kansal in the Apex court last week. The PIL urged the top court to scrap Trai’s directive.

The regulation mandates participation of all business entities, banks and financial institutions, airlines, government bodies, political parties, welfare organizations, and even the Supreme Court of India itself, to name a few, to register on a proposed DLT (distributed ledger technology) based portal, with all client consent/content database, and fine-grained individuals’ preference database, the PIL said.

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com