Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps his Department has taken to prevent cold calls from call centres based abroad being routed through UK phone lines to appear as domestic telephone numbers.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) independently regulate the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, the framework which governs unsolicited direct marketing and nuisance calls. Unsolicited calls coming from beyond our jurisdiction remain a concern, although the ICO has not identified any noticeable or recent increase in volume in respect of this issue.

To help tackle the problem, the ICO engages with the Do Not Call Forum of the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network, which includes overseas regulators with responsibility for tackling nuisance calls. The ICO works with other members, including the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and regulators in South Africa and Australia, to drive forward co-ordinated actions, including sharing relevant intelligence. They are also exploring with local trade associations, representing call centres based in India and other countries, ways to work with relevant authorities to tackle the problem at source.

The Government have already forced companies to display their number when calling, and made it easier for the ICO to prosecute those in breach of direct marketing legislation. We continue to review the ICO's powers of enforcement, and will consider what we are able to do to assist them in tackling this problem.