New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has instructed all access providers to enforce pre-tagging of all variable components in SMS content templates used for commercial communication, the government said on Tuesday.

Variable components, such as URLs, app download links, and callback numbers that change depending on recipients or over time, must now be explicitly tagged, according to an official statement.

Under the new rules, senders must tag each variable field at the time of template registration and specify its intended use. “For example, tagging a variable as #url# implies that the variable contains a URL. Unless these variable fields are pre-tagged, Access Providers cannot identify or scrub them to determine whether the inserted values are from whitelisted domains, numbers, or links,” the Ministry of Communications said.

Pre-tagging will enable automated identification and scrubbing of variable fields. Principal entities and access providers must categorise and register these elements upfront, making them traceable and accountable.

Existing templates must be updated within 60 days. After this compliance period, messages using non-compliant templates will be rejected.

Evidence from multiple Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) investigations showed that the lack of predefined tagging was often exploited for fraudulent and phishing activities, allowing unregistered or malicious URLs, app links, and callback numbers to be inserted into approved templates without detection.

The Ministry said the move strengthens India’s anti-spam and anti-fraud framework by ensuring complete visibility of variable fields in SMS and enabling access providers to implement stricter content scrubbing.

IANS