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Telephone Service Providers

Answer

The Information Commissioner is responsible for administering the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. Regulation 21 of these regulations relates to unsolicited direct marketing telephone calls. It should be noted that complaints received by his office about breaches of Regulation 21 concern not just calls made to Telephone Preference Service (TPS) registered numbers but also calls made to numbers where the subscriber has directly asked the calling organisation not to make marketing calls to that number. Also, Regulation 19 relates to the use of unsolicited direct marketing automated telephone calls.The number of complaints about telephone cold calling made against the parties since the introduction of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) in 2003 is as follows:

	Number
(a) Labour party
Total Regulation 19 complaints	16
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	0
Total Regulation 21 complaints	4
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
(b) Conservative party
Total Regulation 19 complaints	5
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	5
Total Regulation 21 complaints	8
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
(c) Scottish National party
Total Regulation 19 complaints	5
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	5
Total Regulation 21 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
(d) Green party
Total Regulation 19 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	0
Total Regulation 21 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
(e) Liberal Democrats
Total Regulation 19 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	0
Total Regulation 21 complaints	1
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
(f) UKIP
Total Regulation 19 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	0
Total Regulation 21 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
(g) Plaid Cymru
Total Regulation 19 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	0
Total Regulation 21 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
(h) Respect
Total Regulation 19 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 19 complaints	0
Total Regulation 21 complaints	0
‘Upheld' Regulation 21 complaints	0
Note: The term ‘Upheld' also includes cases where the Information Commissioner decided that enforcement action was not appropriate even though there may have been some breach of the regulations.
(7) In 2005 the Information Commissioner issued one enforcement notice under Regulation 19 against the Conservative party.
(8) In 2005 the Information Commissioner issued one enforcement notice under Regulation 19 against the Scottish National party.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

61652; 445 c764-5W;445 c764-5W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Complaints Direct marketing Political parties Telephone services Telephones Unsolicited goods and services

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk