Stay Legally Compliant

The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 regulate the use of electronic communications for unsolicited marketing to individuals and organisations.

Companies and individuals are now required by law to check telephone numbers being used for sales and marketing calls every 28 days – and remove from unsolicited calling those numbers that are registered to ‘opt-out’ from receiving these calls. All individuals and organisations that have registered with the telephone preference service registers must not be targeted with unsolicited telephone calls.

Our systems have been designed to meet the needs of all users from the small and medium-sized enterprises with a limited number of sales prospects to check, all the way through to the major call centre company with hundreds of thousands of records to clean. Some of our clients use us on an ad-hoc basis and some to screen their entire databases every 28 days.

The Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) is the central opt out register whereby corporate subscribers can register their wish not to receive unsolicited sales and marketing telephone calls to either all their organisation's telephone numbers, or to certain numbers. It is a legal requirement that companies do not make such calls to numbers registered on the CTPS.

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a central opt out register whereby individuals can register their wish not to receive unsolicited sales and marketing telephone calls. It is a legal requirement that companies do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS.

Should I check against TPS, CTPS or both?

If you are only calling domestic numbers it’s easy, you only need to check against the TPS.

If you are calling businesses you must check against CTPS and you may need to check against the TPS as well. CTPS includes corporate bodies such as limited companies, schools, hospitals, charities and government institutions. However, sole traders and partnerships are listed on the TPS so if you have any doubt as to the status of your business prospects you should clean against both registers.

For help on whether you can call your existing customers who are TPS-registered please see our downloads page for guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Avoid a £5,000 Fine

Companies not meeting their legal obligations can be fined up to £5,000 for each registered number they call.

If you would like more information, please see the Information Commissioners’ Extract available on our downloads page or go to www.ico.gov.uk.