Facing problems with OTP? Here is why

In the past few days, have you been facing issues receiving one-time passwords (OTP) through SMS from banks, payment service providers, e-commerce and other companies?

By Newsmeter Network  Published on  9 March 2021 3:07 PM GMT
Facing problems with OTP? Here is why

Hyderabad: In the past few days, have you been facing issues receiving one-time passwords (OTP) through SMS from banks, payment service providers, e-commerce and other companies? This is due to the move to implement the second phase of SMS regulation by telecom companies in India after a Delhi court last month directed the Telecom Authority of India to enforce regulation to stop the use of unsolicited commercial communication and the use of fake SMS headers to dupe customers.

SMS headers are unique IDs through which commercial text messages are sent.

This has impacted CoWIN registration OTPs, bank OTPs for debit card transactions, and even systems like two-factor authentication OTPs to log into accounts online.

Several users are facing problems due to this. "I was registering my mother for COVID-19 vaccination, but I never received the OTP," said V. Satish, a resident of Gachibowli.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) guidelines, every SMS content with a registered template must be verified before it is delivered. This process is known as scrubbing and was implemented on Monday after multiple delays.

TRAI said the concept of registered templates for both SMS and voice communication has been introduced to prevent the deliberate mixing of promotional messages into the transactional stream. Telcos said telemarketers and businesses should comply with the standards set by TRAI. A block-chain method is used to verify the content of every SMS and every unregistered SMS is blocked.

Operators have to implement the new Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) process, which has affected push notifications. DLT is a block-chain based registration system. According to TRAI, telemarketers have to be registered in the DLT platform. It is being issued in the public interest to control the SMS spam from various marketing firms.


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