The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has launched a consultation looking into lowering the legal threshold before firms responsible for nuisance calls and texts can be fined. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has the power to issue offenders with a civil monetary penalty of up to £500,000, but its ability to regulate effectively is limited by the need to prove that “substantial damage or distress” has been caused before such fines can be imposed. Information Commissioner Christopher Graham says: “We welcome this proposed change in the law which will enable the ICO to make more fines stick, sending a clear message to the spammers and scammers that the rules around cold calls and spam texts must be followed. The majority of rogue marketing firms make hundreds, rather than thousands, of calls and the nuisance is no less a nuisance for falling short of the ‘substantial’ threshold. This change means we could now target those many companies sending unwanted messages—and we think consumers would see a definite drop off in the total number of spam calls and texts.”
The six-week consultation runs until 6 December 2014.
