House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport Committee: Nuisance Calls: Volume I - HC 636

Book excerpt: Nuisance calls, particularly unwanted marketing calls and text messages, are a bane to millions. A significant underlying feature giving rise to nuisance calls is the unfair processing of personal data, something that is proscribed by the Data Protection Act 1998. The Information Commissioner already has powers to deal with this; he should use them far more. Where regulation fails, technology has a place with a number of useful products available and standard services like caller display can also help. Caller display should be a free service and the Committee regrets BT's decision to charging explicitly for caller display. Some nuisance callers withhold their numbers or hide behind a false one. Nuisance text messages can be simply reported by forwarding them to a dedicated "short code" number (7726) and a similar facility for nuisance calls to landlines is long overdue and would provide useful intelligence to regulators. There should be a single online complaints form. Given that many people do not have internet access, there should also be a single nuisance calls helpline. The legal threshold for the Information Commissioner to take enforcement action under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 must also be lowered. A single nuisance calls regulator might have superficial appeal, but a single point of contact for customers coupled with more effective coordination between regulators - behind the scenes - is both more achievable and desirable. Above all, organisations closer to the source of marketing calls, like the Direct Marketing Association