Spam call crackdown in South Africa

The Information Regulator and the South African government have said they are taking steps to tackle the scourge of spam calls in the country.

Parks Tau, the Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition, has proposed an amendment to the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) to establish a national opt-out registry for direct marketing.

Although the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa (DMASA) already operates a national opt-out registry, only DMASA members are obliged to use it.

Tau’s proposed government-run registry promises consumers a pre-emptive block on all direct marketing.

To ensure direct marketers honour the opt-out registry, Tau has proposed amending the CPA so all direct marketers must register before they are allowed to operate in South Africa.

They will also be required to clearly identify themselves in all marketing communications, ensuring recipients can address any unsolicited communications.

Existing sanctions for violating the CPA include fines and imprisonment for up to 12 months.

The proposed amendment to the CPA comes amid a crackdown on unsolicited called by the Information Regulator.

Information Regulator chair Pansy Tlakula has said that her agency would soon take decisive action against direct marketers contravening the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia).

Tlakula explained that the regulator had obtained legal opinion clarifying that telemarketing amounts to electronic communication and must adhere to Popia.

This followed uncertainty about whether Popia applied to phone calls, or only other forms of electronic communication such as email, SMS, and instant messaging services like WhatsApp.

Tlakula said they held a meeting to engage with players in the sector, where most argued that telephonic direct marketing does not constitute electronic communication.

Direct marketers held that telephone messages are transmitted immediately and are not stored in the network or the recipient’s device until they are received as stipulated in the Act.

However, Tlakula said this technicality did not hold up.

“We did research, and we were assisted by IT experts. We came to the conclusion that as far as the regulator is concerned, a telephone call is an electronic communication,” she said.

“We know that this is a contentious issue that may end up in court, but that is a fight we are prepared to take to its logical conclusion,” stated Tlakula.

According to Tlakula, the volume of direct marketing-related complaints the regulator receives shows that it is near the top of the list of causes of public annoyance.

There is one major loophole in Popia — the first telephone call you receive from a marketer should be a message in which they ask for your consent to receive direct marketing messages.

“If you say yes, they can send you direct marketing messages. If you say no, I’m not interested, they should stop, and they should put you in a database of people who have said no,” Tlakula explained.

But if you do not answer unrecognised phone numbers, a spammer can keep calling you until you pick up that first call.

The Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition’s national opt-out database should address this loophole.