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Dept of Trade and Industry

Answer

Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps her Department is taking to control (a) telephone cold calling and (b) unsolicited silent calls from commercial power diallers from (i) within and (ii) outside the UK. [213502] Ms Hewitt: The information is as follows: (a) My Department introduced the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) scheme, under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 1999. The TPS scheme provides protection to subscribers from unsolicited telephone cold calls, which either originate from the UK or are made from abroad on behalf of UK companies, irrespective of whether they are dialled manually or made by commercial power diallers. (b) The Communications Act 2003 confers powers on the Office of Communications (Ofcom) to regulate forms of behaviour, which fall within the Act's definition of persistent misuse of an electronic communications network or service. Unsolicited silent calls made by commercial power diallers are an example of behaviour, which might represent persistent misuse. Ofcom has taken action against companies, which were found to have generated unacceptably high levels of unsolicited silent calls.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

430 c1265W; 213502

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Direct selling Telephone services Telephones Telephone Preference Service

Link

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