The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asking business entities such as banks, other financial institutions, insurance companies, real estate, and trading companies to seek fresh consent digitally from consumers for sending any commercial messages is a laudable initiative. Implementation of the TRAI directive will protect telecom subscribers from unwanted and unsolicited commercial messages. The telecom regulator has asked these business entities, as Principal Entities (Pes) or Senders in the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018) to seek fresh consent digitally. It also issued a detailed guideline in June specifying a timeline for implementation for all telecom operators to develop and deploy the Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) facility for creating a unified platform and process to register customers’ consent digitally. TRAI made it clear to business entities that all existing consents shall be rendered null and void after the implementation of DCA, and fresh consents will have to be sought by all Pes through digital means only. Spams from business entities often make it difficult for telecom subscribers to distinguish genuine messages from those sent by legal entities and from messages sent by fraudulent companies. This has allowed cybercriminals to dupe many people by sending fake messages to make them share sensitive personal information such as bank account numbers, personal identification numbers, passwords, etc. Once the consent of the subscriber is sought digitally, she or he will be able to ascertain that unsolicited messages from entities to which no consent has been granted In such a scenario, it will be important that the subscriber also remembers the list of business entities to which consent has been granted digitally. An industry survey reveals that many people continue to receive fraudulent SMS and unsolicited calls from business entities even after registering their number on the national Do Not Call or Do Not Disturb registry. TRAI simplifies for the layperson the effect of the implementation of DCA for telecom subscribers if messages from entities that have not obtained consent digitally are automatically blocked. Under the prevalent system, it is not possible for telecom operators to check the veracity of consents as the principal business entities obtain and maintain the consent as their end, and there is no unified system for customers to provide or revoke consent, explains the telecom regulator. The DCA process has the facility to seek, maintain, and revoke the consents of telecom subscribers, and consented data is to be shared with telecom operators. According to the TRAI guidelines, a common short code of 127xxx will be used for sending consent-seeking messages. The purpose, scope of consent, and principal entity or brand name shall be mentioned clearly in the consent-seeking message sent through the short code. The consent acquisition confirmation message to the customers shall also have information related to the revocation of the consent. Further, telecom operators shall develop an SMS or online facility to register the unwillingness of customers to receive any consent-seeking message initiated by any business entity. While these are technical details for business entities and telecom operators, disseminating the information to telecom subscribers is critical to building awareness among them about digital safety. Recurring incidents of cybercriminals duping people to share personal banking information and fraudulently withdraw money from their accounts are reflective of the awareness drive against such fraud not being adequate. The telecom operators, as directed by TRAI, were to ensure that no promotional messages were sent without verification of the consent and preference of the customers. The development and deployment of the DCA system were to take place by July 31, followed by the subsequent process of initiating consent acquisition and onboarding of principal business entities by September 30. TRAI direction on DCA provides an edge to telecom subscribers; it seeks to ensure that if a customer has rejected or not responded to the consent-seeking requests, no such messages to the customer shall be initiated by the same principal entity for the next 90 days for the same consent. However, customers shall have the right to initiate the consent registration request on their own, which implies that on successful deployment, the system will give priority to the customer’s preference regarding providing consent or revoking it for receiving or stopping receiving commercial messages, which is good news. In 2022, complaints received by TRAI against unregistered telemarketers increased to over 9 lakh, thrice the number of complaints it had received in 2020, which is indicative of the growing menace of spam messages and calls. The number of telemarketers disconnected by TRAI increased to 32000 in 2022, double the number in 2021. These numbers, however, do not reveal the actual situation, as many customers are not even aware of lodging a complaint against such spam messages and calls, while many simply ignore them. The deployment of the DCA system will provide great relief to customers, provided it ensures monitoring of unregistered telemarketers who use personal numbers.