Contact4

I wrote earlier this month about the plague of cold calls that I had been receiving from Contact4 who hide behind a variety of phone numbers (eg 08445560022, 08445560020 and 016131787000) in order to evade call blocking.

I had, at the time, raised a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

I have now received a written response from the ICO. The ICO confirm that Cobntact4 has breached the requirements of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

So far so good!

The ICO then goes on to say that the Commissioner has no powers to punish an organisation for breach of the regulations, all that he can do is write to Contact4 reminding them of their obligations.

The ICO have written to Contact4.

Seemingly Contact4 have to continue to make a pain in the arse of themselves, before the ICO will pass on my complaint to the Regulatory Action Division.

Clearly this is not a system designed to help the individual complainant.

My question therefore is this:

What is the point of the regulations, the Commissioner and the ICO if they will not enforce the regulations?

I sent the ICO a link to this post today, together with the following questions:

"Thousands of people are being plagued on a daily basis by Contact4 (do a Google on them, or their phone numbers), why do you sit back and do nothing (ie merely write to them "reminding them of their obligations")?

What is the point of the regulations, the Commissioner and the ICO if they will not enforce the regulations?

Kind regards

Ken Frost"