ICO vows to root out rogues as it issues £340,000 fines

The Information Commissioner’s Office might be licking its wounds after a week to forget at the Upper Tribunal but its crackdown on so-called nuisance calls continues unabated with two more firms hit with fines totalling £340,000 for contacting people on the Telephone Preference Service.

First in the dock was Cardiff-based Outsource Strategies, which made 1,346,503 illegal marketing calls between February 11 2021 and March 22 2022 to numbers registered with the TPS. The ICO received 74 complaints from those targeted, variously saying they received repeated calls despite requests to stop and that the callers were aggressive.

During the investigation, OSL blamed TPS screening responsibility on its contracted partners and stated it also had internal systems in place to ensure this did not happen. The ICO found this to be incorrect, as 141,914 calls were still made to people marked as “do not call” on its own systems.

The investigation also uncovered that OSL directors were involved with a separate company previously fined by the ICO.

OSL has been slapped with a monetary penalty of £240,000 and an enforcement notice, under the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), although it has already launched an appeal against both the fine and the notice.

Next up “before the Beak” was London-based Dr Telemarketing, which made 80,240 illegal marketing calls between February 11 2021 and March 22 2022 to numbers registered with the TPS. The highly exploitative unwanted calls were all made regarding Lotto Express and were targeted at vulnerable people to maximise profit.

During the investigation, the ICO uncovered what appeared to be a network of five people and eight companies all involved in deliberately making the unwanted calls.

DRT argued opt-in details were supplied by its business partner and screening was provided by another company. However, the ICO found there was no mechanism in place to identify and mitigate against making unwanted calls and that screening was not contracted to cover all the data providers involved.

Despite repeated attempts to communicate with the company, DRT stopped engaging with the ICO during the investigation and failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for the Lotto Express calls.

DRT was issued with a £100,00 fine and also been issued with an enforcement notice, under PECR. However, the firm has not paid the fine or appealed the notice therefore the ICO is commencing financial recovery action.

ICO head of investigations Andy Curry said: “All the people targeted by these nuisance calls should not have been called in the first place. They had all taken action to protect themselves by registering with the TPS.

“It is unacceptable they were repeatedly interrupted and subjected to aggressive and unpleasant marketing, particularly as some of the victims told us they were people with vulnerabilities. I would like to thank those who took the time to report to us, as this helped our investigation to bring these two companies to account.

“All companies engaging in direct marketing should take note. If you flout the law, you can expect the ICO to use the full force of its regulatory powers against you.

“And, as in this case, it doesn’t matter how complicated the network of companies and individuals are, we will work through the evidence to find and take action against the perpetrators of these unlawful calls to protect the public.”