2023-08-13 11:54:48
A month and a half after the unwanted business calls —also known as “spam”— were prohibited by law, “these have not stopped” and, as they have assured EFE from the OCU (Organization of Consumers and Users), the Compliance with regulations today “is deficient”.
Meanwhile, some of the companies, such as Telefónica or Vodafone, deny that they are making calls without due consent of the recipient and claim to be complying with the law. For its part, Orange, the second operator in the country, has not ruled on the matter.
As estimated by the OCU before this prohibition came into force, almost half of the random and indiscriminate calls came from telephone operators.
planned sanctions
Since June 30, companies can be penalized for these so-called ‘spam’ under the General Telecommunications Law, which was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on June 29, 2022, and which contemplated an article that included this prohibition.
The normative established a period of one year for the entry into force of the right of end users not to receive unwanted calls for communication purposes. Thus, if the company makes a ‘spam’ call without consent, the Spanish Agency for Data Protection (AEPD) may penalize it.
The AEPD has not provided EFE with data on complaints related to non-compliance with the regulations and it has been referred to the information that it published in this regard before the entry into force of the law.
The OCU neither has issued a specific report on user complaints, taking into account that the regulations have been in force for less than two months, although due to the information that compliance with the law is reaching them, it is deficient, they have explained.
exceptions to the law
According to OCU sources, some companies are taking advantage of exceptionalities that establishes the law to make these calls, but interpreting them in a broad sense.
Specifically, the law establishes that users will have right “not to receive unwanted calls cfor commercial communication purposes, unless there is prior consent to receive this type of commercial communications” or “unless the communication can rely on another legal basis than those provided for in article 6.1 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the processing of personal data”.
This exception, for example, would apply in cases where the call was necessary to protect vital interestsor for the fulfillment of a mission carried out in the public interest, among others.
Before the law came into force, the OCU already warned that in practice it was impossible to identify which company is behind two out of three commercial calls, and only one in ten obtained clear information to be able to cancel the registered information and the unsubscribe request.
phone companies
Almost half of the ‘spam’ calls came from telecommunications companies. Telefónica, the main Spanish telecommunications operator, has assured EFE that since 1004 “no calls are made without the proper consent of the client” and that they have trained their extensive commercial network precisely not to make these types of calls.
In any case, it has been recalled that if a user detects any practice to the contrary, the operation contemplates that they contact with the source to cease the practice immediately. “We regularly monitor the issue and according to the information available, compliance is practically complete”, they have pointed out.
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For its part, Vodafone, the third operator in Spain, has also informed EFE that has “fully” adapted to the new obligations of the law, as well as the requirements established by the data protection agency for commercial calls. In this sense, Vodafone sources have asserted that “commercial calls are not made to users who have not given their consent or who do not have another basis of legitimacy.”
In addition, they have abounded that new arguments have been established in the calls as mandated by the AEPD, identifying both Vodafone and the agency calling on its behalf, indicating that it is a business call and informing about the data protection rights that the user has.
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