Nuisance Calls

(asked on 29th June 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to combat unsolicited and nuisance calls.


Answered by
Julia Lopez Portrait
Julia Lopez
Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This question was answered on 4th July 2022

The Government is fully aware that unsolicited direct marketing calls, known as nuisance calls, can cause anxiety and distress, particularly for the most vulnerable people in our society.

Companies that send direct marketing communications are regulated by both the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) and the data protection legislation (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018). The PECR was designed to complement the data protection legislation and impose strict obligations on organisations that make direct marketing calls to individuals in the UK. The legislation is regulated and enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The Government’s response to the consultation Data: A New Direction which proposed reforms to improve the UK’s data protection regime, including potential changes to the PECR, was published on the 17th June 2022.

The Government plans to introduce new legislation to allow the ICO to take enforcement action against organisations on the basis of the number of communications (calls, texts and emails) that they generate rather than just on the number that are connected. It will also require public communications service and network providers to inform the ICO of suspicious traffic transiting their networks when they have reasonable suspicion; and increase fines for direct marketing companies that continue to break the rules. In the future, this will mean that ICO could levy fines of up to £17.5m or 4% of a businesses’ global turnover for serious infringements of the Regulations, rather than the current maximum which is set at £500,000.

These measures will upgrade the PECR enforcement regime to make it more effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

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