Do Not Call Register

Unsolicited calls to residential telephones have sky-rocketed over recent years.  Some over enthusiastic or unthinking cold callers have created problems for residents as well as for a whole industry.

Over recent years, the Australian Communications and Media Authority has received too many consumer complaints.  The government has followed the lead of other nations and in May 2007 introduced the “Do Not Call Register”.

The Register gives individuals the power to nominate not to receive certain unsolicited telemarketing calls. 

In the first day of operation, more than one million residential telephone numbers were placed on the Register.  Such was Australia’s enthusiasm, the online registration facility temporarily crashed under the flood of electronic traffic. The rush to register was very similar to what occurred in the UK and the US.

Certain callers, such as charities, government bodies, educational or religious organisations and registered political parties are exempt from the new law.

Further exemptions include express consent to receive a call, or consent that can be inferred by the individual’s business relationship.  Australian businesses engaging the services of overseas call centres will also be held accountable under the law.

However, eleventh hour concessions have extended the range of exemptions.  One of the early versions of the Government’s plan, indicated that calls from research firms would be banned on Sundays.  But the rules that came into effect allow pollsters and market researchers to call home owners between 9am and 5pm on Sundays.

Research firms argued that a Sunday ban would undermine the integrity of their longitudinal data and the value of opinion polling.

Predictably, some lobbyists are suggesting the government has gone soft and allowed too many exemptions.

The ACMA chairman, Chris Chapman defends the exemption and says “prohibiting research calls on a Sunday could potentially reduce the benefits to the community from well-structured research”.

In granting the additional exemption, researchers and pollsters have been drawn under a stricter industry standard than the self-regulation they previously enjoyed.

The new national industry standard introduced in conjunction with the Do Not Call Register governs when and how telemarketers can contact individuals.  Specifically, it covers:

• The time at which telemarketing calls can be made - not before 9am or after 8pm weekdays (8:30pm in the case of market research).  The Saturday window closes at 5pm and Sunday now has exemptions.
• Information that must be provided during the call - name of caller, contact details and purpose of the call.  On request callers must reveal the source from which they draw their telephone numbers.
• Callers are required to terminate a telemarketing call on request; and
• Callers must have calling line identification in operation.

Stiff penalties up to more than $1 million can be imposed on businesses that break the rules.  Communications Minister, Helen Coonan says “we’re really serious about getting after people who are pests”.

All telemarketers need to take care.  With the new legislation, the government has a big stick and it seems that the authorities will not be afraid to wield it on those who flout the law.

The register can be found at www.donotcall.gov.au