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All Party Parliamentary Group backs DMC call for co-regulation 11th November, 2013

All Party Parliamentary Group report backs DMC call for a co-regulatory strive to deal with nuisance calls

The APPG report on nuisance calls was published on 31 October. In it the Group takes a holistic approach, looking at the standards and controls around lead generation, the operation of the Telephone Preference Service, the role phone providers can play in supporting their users and ways in which regulators can do a better job. The call for an accreditation scheme for lead generation firms and the call on Ministers to create a co-regulatory body to support the work of ICO and others are of obvious interest to the industry.

The DMC had argued strongly for a co-regulatory arrangement that would allow industry, probably though an enhanced TPS with investigative and adjudicatory powers of the kind delivered by DMC, to take responsibility itself for dealing with non-compliance.

This was not a call to replace the ICO bot for a complementary set-up that dealt with complaints fast and on the necessary scale. Sorting the accidental, reckless and sometimes wilful behaviour and dealing with it in a proportionate way would give the public the assurance action is in hand and send a message to businesses that braking the rules is not a consequence-free option.

Few DMA members appear on the list of firms who are much complained about, but some have. The action taken in some cases to come into full compliance seems to have dramatically reduced complaint levels. The All Party Group shares our belief that effective regulation by the industry and ICO in partnership could drive complaint levels down.

The APPG report has gone to the Culture Department Minister and the DMC has already met his officials to explain our work and our thinking on how co-regulation meets the consumer’s expectation that their wishes will be respected when it comes to marketing calls and gives those who collect and process data and make service and marketing calls a climate in which this valuable work is not stigmatised. This requires a sense of urgency and creativity from our politicians and their agencies and officials.

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