The reform of Italian public Register of oppositions (“RPO”), on which D.P.R. No 66/2022 has recently impacted, has introduced several innovations in the field of compliance and safeguards for telemarketing, making it possible to register mobile telephone numbers as well, thereby preventing their use for marketing purposes.
Due to the rules of the RPO system, before launching a telemarketing campaign, companies are required to consult the register to update their lists, discarding the numbers recorded in the register. A significant effect of joining the RPO is to render all previously expressed privacy consents ineffective. This rule, however, provides for a significant exception: the registration does not overwhelm the consents given by customers in the context of an existing contractual relationship or terminated within 30 days. However, this exception can only be made if the firm has in any case ensured that clients and former clients can revoke their privacy consent, in particular by means of “simplified procedures”.
With the entry into force of the new rules on RPO, the attention of Italian Data Protection Authority (“Garante Privacy”) has also increased.
Among the many measures taken in recent years, the Authority has also had the opportunity to comment on the rules recently mentioned: indeed, in one case involving a well-known company active in the energy sales market, the Authority found that the firm had contacted its customers or former customers but had not implemented the simplified procedures to allow withdrawal of consent; the exception described above was therefore not applicable, with the consequence that the company would instead have had to “filter” its contact lists before launching outbound campaigns. This case ended with a fine of more than EUR 6 million for unsolicited promotional calls without the prior consent of the recipients or using numbers registered in the RPO.