The rise of AI telemarketing tools could with see legitimate companies being caught with their trousers down and trigger a knock on the door from the Information Commissioner’s Office, whose relentless pursuit of rogue firms has been one of the few successes of recent years.
That is the warning to emerge from a new report by Birmingham-based marketing agency Avid Panda, which shows that the ICO received 53,989 complaints relating to unsolicited marketing calls between 2021 and 2025 and issued over £7m in fines for breaches of PECR.
Over the same period, the regulator carried out 708 investigations, issued 48 enforcement notices, and handed 63 companies a monetary penalty notice.
The penalties totalled £7,132,000, with the largest individual fine issued being £300,000.
Automated marketing calls are subject to strict requirements and generally require specific consent from the person or business being contacted. However, some companies are ignoring these rules and turning to quantity over quality tactics to gain customers. Recently, two home improvement firms were fined £240,000 after making more than 800,000 nuisance phone calls to vulnerable people.
In response to the findings, Avid Panda said: “Cold calling feels like a quick and direct way to reach new customers, especially in times when sales are difficult, but businesses can’t afford to ignore PECR requirements and customer consent. Good marketing should make it easier for someone to find and trust a business, rather than leaving them questioning why they were contacted in the first place.”
The agency maintains that, with the rise of AI tools, some businesses may not even realise how much risk they are taking on. AI-powered calling systems are being used to contact large numbers of people with very little manual involvement, which means a mistake could be repeated tens of thousands of times.
“If you choose to use an AI calling system, it’s important to understand who is being contacted, where the data came from, whether consent is required, and what to do when somebody asks not to be called. These tools may seem useful, but in reality they can cause a big headache if PECR is breached or if someone they call decides to make a complaint.”
While data protection professionals point to the fact that rogue firms very rarely cough up, only an estimated 23% of penalties are successfully gathered, they warn that legitimate businesses will not only have to dig deep, they also risk reputational damage.
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