Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Andrew Page [NTC 005]

Can parliament do anything to tighten up the laws regarding nuisance calls since the TPS seems to be totally ineffective in preventing the vast number of unsolicited calls? I signed up to the TPS years ago and if anything the number of nuisance calls since then has increased rather than decreased.

I would like to see a law introduced which made it illegal a) to block the telephone number by those making calls and b) prevent companies passing on personal details to others whether or not for profit, without the written consent of the individual concerned.

I have lost count of the number of PPI calls I have received not to mention survey companies since I once made the mistake of participating in a survey. But as so many nuisance calls seem to originate from the Indian subcontinent and therefore not subject to UK law, perhaps it could be made the responsibility of the phone provider not to connect calls emanating from a blocked number. I feel sure that the technology must exist to enable them to do this in much the same way as spam emails can be blocked.

I do hope the committee can recommend some sort of action that would have real teeth since the proliferation of nuisance seems to be on an inexorable increase and I feel that the telephone companies will be reluctant to do anything without threat of some sort of sanction or fine that would hurt their profits.

July 2013