Policy background Miscellaneous Direct marketing code
The Act contains measures that the government believes will contribute to reducing the number of unwanted direct marketing telephone calls. The Information Commissioner’s direct marketing guidance sets out best practice to ensure that the law is complied with. The Act places this guidance on a statutory footing by requiring the Information Commissioner to issue a statutory code of practice on direct marketing. It is the government’s view that this will make it easier for the Information Commissioner to take enforcement action against those organisations in breach of the direct marketing rules under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/2426) ("PECR").
	Direct marketing without consent from targeted consumers is an offence under PECR. Consent for direct marketing does not last indefinitely and in PECR consent is referred to as only being given ‘for the time being’. The Information Commissioner’s direct marketing guidance is that if an organisation is making contact by telephone, text or email for the first time it should not, in most circumstances, rely on any indirect (third party) consent given more than six months ago, even if the consent did clearly cover that organisation. The Commissioner frequently sees situations where third party consent is taken to last indefinitely and to apply to any number of different companies and products. Fines imposed may be challenged and where the quality of consent is a core issue, enforcement has proven difficult to sustain. The Act will aid enforcement of the regulations.