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Thomas K. Thomas

PIL filed to safeguard privacy of individuals

New Delhi , Nov. 8

The Government is setting up a high-powered committee comprising officials from the Department of Telecom, Ministry of Finance and Law to draft a legislation to tackle unwanted telemarketing calls on mobile phones. While the move will cheer mobile consumers, it may sound the death knell of the large number of domestic business process outsourcing companies and banks selling financial products such as credit cards and home loans over the telephone.

The move follows a Supreme Court directive to the Government to safeguard consumer interest. Earlier, Dr Harsh Pathak moved a Public Interest Litigation against telemarketing calls. Operators such as Hutch had introduced the `Do Not Disturb' list whereby subscribers could get their names registered after which no telemarketers could call the subscribers without consent.

The Supreme Court, however, observed that the Government needs to do more on this front. Many countries such as the USand Australia have already introduced legislation to bar telemarketers from calling mobile subscribers.

The US President, Mr George W. Bush, signed a legislation in September that would enable the Federal Trade Commission to enforce a national do-not-call (DNC) list.

Telemarketers would be fined if they called anyone on this list. Since then, more than 50 million telephone numbers have been put on the DNC list by people who do not want to receive telemarketing calls.

Unsolicited calls

Back home, Dr Pathak said that the PIL was filed to safeguard privacy of individuals and to establish a proper forum to address the issue of unsolicited calls.

The SC had issued notices to the Government and the operators almost a year back but till now there have been no moves to curb these unwanted calls. Where as a matter of fact the entire national and world community looking forward and expecting the Indian community and economy to be at par with the international community by formulating and implementing the privacy and data protection policies of the individuals and their personal data, the ignorance shown by the respondents of the apex Court's order by not filing the reply and continuance of the unsolicited calls is a disgrace for the entire nation and its commitments for socio- economic governance to the rest of the world in the era of globalisation," Dr Pathak's PIL said.

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