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28 March 2024

TRA and NMC discuss mobile users' privacy

Published
By Wam

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and the National Media Council (NMC) on Wednesday discussed safeguarding the privacy of mobile phone users in the UAE, particularly in regard to reducing spam via mobile phones.

The  meeting was held yesterday at the head office of the council in Abu Dhabi in the presence of Mohammad Nasser Al-Ghanim, TRA Director General and Ibrahim Al-Abed, Director General of the National Media Council.

The meeting emphasized the need to adhere to regulatory policy regarding "spam and electronic communication" issued by the TRA on 30 December 2009.

Al Ghanim said: "TRA has great interest in this aspect in the telecommunications sector in the UAE therefore, has issued the necessary legislation to reflect the roles of both licensees "Etisalat" and "du" in reducing the phenomenon of spam promotional, and the TRA created mechanism for that to allow those affected to report spam as instructed operators to provide the necessary technical resources that prevent access such messages to users and prevent the recurrence of access if the user reports ".

Al Ghanim added "the TRA emphasises on the need to take the prior approval of the target before sending marketing messages via mobile phone, noting that regulatory policy established by the TRA in this regard stipulates to respect the individual privacy and prohibits sending marketing messages via mobile phone between 9 pm and 7 am.

The terms of regulatory policy for the TRA also apply to promotional messages via mobile phones issued by licensed "Etisalat" and "du" messaging service and also applied sender blocking service by both operators where users can send a free message to the number (7726) to block unwanted messages from a particular source.

Al-Abed said: "The importance of this subject in the light of the attention of the National Media Council to provide Media and information content in the communication networks and the media is committed to standards relating to this matter, which emphasised consideration of the individual privacy and their right to accept or reject the promotional and marketing content that sends to them from the different commercial providers."

The meeting comes after TRA's research into to complaints by the public about intrusive marketing text messages. The authority aims to apply regulatory policy to reduce marketing messages sent to users without their consent as well as to achieve the utmost respect for users' privacy.