My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for tabling Amendment 208A and the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for moving it. This amendment would insert new Regulation 22A into the privacy and electronic communications regulations and would prohibit via email or text unsolicited approaches encouraging people to commence personal injury claims sent by, or on behalf of, claims management companies.
The Government agree that people should not receive unsolicited emails and texts from claims management companies encouraging them to make personal injury claims. I assure noble Lords that this is already unlawful under the existing regulations. Regulation 22(2) prohibits the sending of all unsolicited electronic communications direct marketing approaches—including, but not limited to, texts and emails—unless the recipient has previously consented to receiving the communication. Regulation 21A already bans live calling by claims management companies.
In the past year, the Information Commissioner has issued fines of more than £1.1 million to companies that have not adhered to the direct marketing rules. Clause 117 considerably increases the financial penalties that can be imposed for breaches of the rules, providing a further deterrent to rogue claims management and direct marketing organisations.
Amendments 211 and 215 relate to Clause 116 so I will address them together. Amendment 211 seeks to confirm that a provider of a public electronic communications service or network is not required to intercept or examine the content of any communication in order to comply with the new duty introduced by Clause 116. I assure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord that the duty is a duty to share information only. It merely requires providers to share any information that they already hold or gather through routine business activities and which may indicate suspicious unlawful direct marketing on their networks; it does not empower, authorise or compel a communications provider to intercept messages or listen to phone calls.
Should a communications provider become aware of information through its routine business activities that indicates that unlawful direct marketing activity may be taking place on its service or network, this duty simply requires it to share that information with the Information Commissioner. For example, a communications provider may receive complaints from
its subscribers who have received numerous unsolicited direct marketing communications from a specific organisation. We know from the public consultation that people want action taken against nuisance calls and spam, and this duty will support that.
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Amendment 215 seeks to delay commencement of the new duty for a period of six months after the Information Commissioner’s Office has published its guidance on what may constitute reasonable grounds for suspecting a breach of the direct marketing rules. We are committed to working with the ICO and the sector to agree a sensible plan for implementation. We have engaged in detail with the ICO and industry on this matter and will continue to do so. Setting timings in the legislation could be counterproductive if a shorter or longer period is needed to prepare. Setting dates through secondary legislation benefits the sector by ensuring flexibility over timings.
For these reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.