Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh on Tuesday said the Consumer Affairs Ministry has issued an advisory directing retailers not to insist on personal contact details of customers for providing certain services.
The advisory has been issued following several complaints from consumers. He said customers have complained about several retailers not providing services to them if they refuse to share their contact numbers.
The secretary told reporters, “The vendors say they cannot generate bills unless personal contact details are provided. There’s no rationality behind it.”
There is also the concern of privacy. Therefore, an advisory has been issued to the retail industry and industry chambers CII and FICCI to resolve the issue in the interest of consumers.
It is not mandatory for customers in India to provide their mobile number to the retailer to generate the bill. However, retailers insisting on a single number to complete a transaction puts customers in an awkward position. Most of the time, customers are not given the option to opt out in many of these situations.
Last month, Govt. informed The Supreme Court said that the government will introduce the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament in July. A five-judge constitution bench comprising Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar fixed the matter for hearing in August.
Attorney General R Venkataramani, appearing for the Centre, told the bench that a new bill on personal data protection is ready and will be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament.
The Attorney General said, “The bill is ready, it is to be introduced in the Parliament in the monsoon session at the end of June, July.”