Changes to regulations suggested to protect vulnerable people from nuisance calls and text messages
Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, Ed Vaizey, is recommending a change to regulations in a bid to clamp down on nuisance calls and text messages.
The plans would make it easier to fine those who bombard customers with cold calls and spam messages and, once agreed, would be in place before the next general election.
Reports in The Independent claim the threat of fines would help to "protect the vulnerable" and stop firms contacting customers with numerous messages citing promises of mis-sold payment protection insurance as an example of such calls.
Mike Crockart, the Lib Dem MP who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nuisance Calls, deemed the move, if it goes ahead, "the first step in the right direction" to protect the "most vulnerable households from nuisance scams".
Last year a previous attempt to stop nuisance calls and messages was halted when a legal ruling went against the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after it fined Christopher Niebel, the co-owner of marketing company Tetrus Telecoms, £30,000 when the company sent hundreds of thousands of texts regarding PPI and accident claims.
A draft version of a consolation recommends changes to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations with the preferred option believed to be lowering the threshold for when a firm can be fined.
"This will make it much more straightforward for us to take action," said Simon Entwistle, deputy chief executive of the ICO. "At the moment, it takes a large amount of effort to prove substantial distress and this change will make it much more proportionate to the problems these calls and texts cause."
He added that he hoped the changes would make it easier to "close down those that are not reputable marketing firms" by making cold calling "unattractive as a business model".
"We understand firms can have legitimate reasons to make marketing calls, but we reckon that for every one concern lodged with us there are about 1,000 nuisance calls or texts," Entwistle said.