Have the calls for business purposes ended, some at odd hours or on holidays? Will there be more of a crackdown on companies that practice this telephone telemarketing with lists of numbers, sometimes purchased or obtained irregularly? The theory encourages you to answer yes, since tomorrow, Thursday, article 66.1.b of the general Telecommunications law comes into force to limit these contacts if there is no prior consent from the consumer. In practice, it will be seen. The OCU, for example, welcomes this law, but says that it is necessary to wait to see whether it will be effective or not.
The new law only refers to calls, since this rule already applies to electronic communication. Before this law, companies were not obliged (as of June 29, yes) to have the express consent of the user before dialing their telephone number from a call center. The only thing the citizen could do so far to escape this torture or telephone harassment was to expressly request to stop receiving these calls, appealing to the right to privacy in the processing of personal data.
In complying with the new rule, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) assumes an important role. At least that’s how the OCU thinks it is. This consumer rights organization has already asked this agency, which ensures the privacy of all Spaniards’ data, to reinforce “its control and surveillance tasks, and if necessary impose exemplary sanctions” on violators .
There is a lot of work to do. The OCU reports that today most companies that sell their products by telephone or electronic means repeatedly violate the rules in commercial communications. And the OCU insists: “This law is a good start to put an end to these calls, but it is still too early to assess whether the result will be what consumers expect”
The current reality with these practices does not exactly encourage optimism. According to the OCU, “only in 33% of cases can it be identified who is behind the phone, and users’ data can only be deleted in 10% of cases. So if this trend continues after the law comes into force, the problem will continue to be the difficulty in identifying the author of the call, and more so when it is made from foreign countries. The Secretary of State for Telecommunications states, however, that the AEPD will be able to initiate proceedings regardless of the location of these call centers.
What will continue to work is the Robinson list, where users can sign up to request that no one contact them without prior consent. But there is an added problem: many times this permission is self-granted unconsciously when browsing the internet or making a purchase. And then, with or without law, companies can call as many times as they want or send as many e-mails as they see fit.
But all is not lost, with this law complaints to the AEPD are more likely to succeed. The OCU therefore encourages reporting.
