Will we get rid of harassing call centers? New rules and new doubts
The Communications Authority has approved the Code of Conduct aimed at "contrasting the practice of illegal and aggressive teleselling and encouraging consumers to adhere to contracts that comply with current legislation". Therefore stricter rules for call centers but binding measures only for those who adhere
Agcom takes the field against unwanted and harassing phone calls from call centres.
In the meeting of the Board of July 26, the Communications Authority approved the Code of Conduct aimed at combating the practice of illegal and aggressive teleselling and encouraging consumers to adhere to contracts that comply with current legislation.
The Code of Conduct, according to a note , defines a series of measures, to be implemented in contracts between electronic communications operators and commercial partners who carry out call center activities, inspired, among other things, by the principles of "transparency of contracts with end users concluded by telephone", of "correct use of lists of telephone numbers", of "regulation of sub-contracting of call center activities" and obligation to register with the ROC of call centres".
Membership is on a voluntary basis but penalties are foreseen. Indirectly, in particular through the contracts that will have to incorporate the envisaged measures, the Code of Conduct will in any case have effects on the activity of the call centers that sign the contracts themselves (even if they turn out not to have directly adhered to the Code of Conduct ), specifies the Agcom.
Therefore, a code of conduct is active against aggressive telemarketing which aims to be complementary to the one approved by the Privacy Guarantor which, however, is not yet in force, as La Repubblica points out , due to some red tape. On 24 March, the Privacy Guarantor approved the Code of Conduct for telemarketing and teleselling activities, but the rules will come into force only once the Monitoring Body has been set up which will supervise compliance with the code.
All the details.
ALL MEASURES PROVIDED
As the note from the Authority chaired by Giacomo Lasorella explains, the Code of Conduct, drawn up as part of the work of the technical table set up with resolution no. 420/19/CONS, defines, in a logic of self-regulation, a series of measures, to be implemented in contracts between electronic communications operators and commercial partners who carry out call center activities.
Specifically, the measures are inspired by the following principles: transparency of contracts with end users concluded by telephone; correct use of telephone number lists, as provided by operators; – regulation of sub-contracting of call center activities; obligation for the call center to be recalled by the customer; obligation to register with the call center ROC and prohibition to change the Caller Line Identification of the line from which the call to the customer originates.
In addition, Agcom specifies that all contact methods developed through channels other than the voice telephone such as, for example, the SMS channel do not fall within the scope of the Code of Conduct.
VOLUNTARY ADHERENCE BY OPERATORS AND CALL CENTERS TO THE CODE OF CONDUCT
Adhesion to the Code of Conduct by operators and call centers is on a voluntary basis; therefore the measures contained are binding only for those who have adhered to them.
WHO HAS JOINED
According to the Agcom note, to date the main operators of electronic communications have declared their adherence to the Code of Conduct, so users will be able to get an idea of who is better to trust and who is not, underlines Repubblica , and the Authority publishes the list of subscribers to the Code.
SANCTIONS PROVIDED
Furthermore, the operators and call centers who adhere to the Code will incur penalties in the event of violations of the same.
The resolution approving the Code of Conduct provides for a disciplinary measure, subject to warning to comply, against the subjects who have adhered to it, underlines the note from the Authority.
ABOUT THE SPOOFING PHENOMENON
Lastly, Agcom found that the regulatory system was insufficient to ensure an effective fight against the phenomenon of illegal teleselling. According to the Authority, for example, there are no rules which oblige call centers to adopt recognizable numbering, indicated by the Authority, and which make it possible to combat the so-called telephone number spoofing (when the caller deliberately sends false information to show up with the ID of another user), now facilitated by new technologies, with a reach that is not only national.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/ci-libereremo-dei-call-center-molesti-nuove-regole-e-dubbi/ on Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:27:21 +0000.