Two firms that were behind nearly 600,000 nuisance calls attempting to sell home security systems to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), have been fined a total of £220,000 by the data privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office. The ICO points out that it’s against the law to make marketing calls to numbers that have been registered with the TPS.
ACT Response Ltd of Middlesbrough was behind 496,455 live marketing calls to TPS subscribers and has been fined £140,000. There were 128 complaints made about the company between January 2017 and February 2018. The ICO noted that the script used by the company for making the calls, even asked people whether they were registered with the TPS.
Another firm, Secure Home Systems (SHS) of Bilston, West Midlands, has been fined £80,000 for making calls to 84,347 numbers registered with the TPS between September and December 2017, using call lists bought from third parties without screening them. People made 268 complaints about the company over a two-year period.
Andy Curry, ICO Group Enforcement Manager, said: “These fines should set alarm bells ringing and deter marketing companies across all sectors that are contacting people without their consent. It is a company’s responsibility to make sure that it has valid consent to make these calls. The TPS is there for a reason – to protect people’s privacy and ensure that marketing companies obey the law. Marketing companies failing to take the basic step of checking TPS can expect robust enforcement.”
The ICO’s advice for people who receive nuisance marketing calls, emails and texts is to ask the company to remove their details from their lists, read the small print and be careful about ticking boxes which could give them consent to contact you; and to report them to the ICO. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) give people specific privacy rights in relation to electronic communications. There are specific rules on marketing calls, emails, texts and faxes; cookies (and similar technologies); keeping communications services secure; and customer privacy. The ICO has the power under PECR to fine a data controller up to £500,000.
