Senate Discusses Issue of Automatic Subscription to Paid SMS and Services

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — At a plenary session of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis, Kutbiddin Burkhanov, Chairman of the Committee on Defense and Security, reported a growing number of cases where mobile operators automatically subscribe users to paid SMS messages and services without their consent, debiting citizens’ accounts without authorization.

He noted that as of January 1, the number of mobile subscribers exceeded 36 million. Paid services are not provided directly by the operators but by content providers, whose number exceeds one hundred. “Most of these companies operate under agreements with telecom operators, but payments are debited without the users’ knowledge. After a single subscription, funds continue to be debited daily or monthly,” the senator emphasized.

Burkhanov pointed out that current legislation lacks specific norms regulating the activities of content providers, and licensing requirements for them have not been established. According to the Committee on Competition Development and Consumer Rights Protection, in 2024 alone, 1,192 complaints related to telecom services were filed, resulting in refunds totaling 683.2 million soums.

As a solution, the Ministry of Digital Technologies proposed a two-step confirmation system for subscribing to paid services: providing full information about the service and obtaining the subscriber’s consent via SMS, USSD code, phone call, or another method that prevents misleading practices. Automatic subscriptions would be prohibited. Deputy Minister of Digital Technologies Jamol Mahsudov noted that the draft updated rules are already being discussed with relevant agencies and will be registered with the Ministry of Justice once approved.

Senate Chairperson Tanzila Narbayeva stressed the need for further study of the issue and promised to provide a report within a month. “By December, the relevant regulatory act must be adopted to prevent such cases from occurring next year,” she stated.

Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Competition Development and Consumer Rights Protection Farrukh Karabayev added that about 25% of 1,400 complaints in 2024 were related to content providers, and the committee, together with the Ministry of Digital Technologies, is developing proposals to close legislative gaps.