Government consults on New Privacy Regulations for Spam

Last year the European Commission introduced a Directive on telecommunications and now the British Government is consulting on how this should be implemented in UK law.

The new Directive is intended to ensure technological neutrality and interoperability among networks and systems in order to facilitate the provision of a wide range of electronic communications services and guarantee the maximum level of consumers' personal data and privacy protection.

The Directive clarifies the position of e-mail and use of the Internet and extends controls on unsolicited direct marketing to all forms of electronic communications including unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE or Spam) and SMS to mobile telephones. It introduces controls on the use of cookies on websites. It also introduces new information and consent requirements on entries in publicly available directories, including a requirement that subscribers are informed of all the usage possibilities of publicly available directories (e.g. reverse searching from a telephone number in order to obtain a name and address).

In other words, under the new proposals, the Government aims to introduce new laws that will prevent consumers being contacted via email or SMS unless they have opted in to receive information. It will be allowed to provide customers with value-added services, such as cricket scores, where consent has been given.

Department of Trade and Industry figures suggest that as much as 40% of all the email sent worldwide is unsolicited or spam.

Launching the consultation, e-commerce minister Stephen Timms called badly targetted messages, by email or phone, fax or text, a great nuisance and said they were eroding trust in legitimate business services.

Consultation on the implementation of the European Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications will be carried out over the next three months. The deadline is June 19. The website below contains details of how to respond to the consultation exercise.

Additionally, if you would like to be included on the contact list on this Directive, to hear about future developments including the publication of the final measures and the Government's response to the consultation, email your details to cdpd@dti.gsi.gov.uk, clearly stating your interest in being kept informed of developments on the DPEC.

Associated Link: Details of the consultation

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