Speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday, Allan Chiang, Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD), urged the government to tighten the relevant rules to expand the do-not-call registers to include person-to-person (P2P) calls. Currently, it only includes fax messages, short and pre-recorded telephone messages - but excludes P2P calls.

This sounds like a welcome move for society. For too long, we have received many unsolicited commercial calls. This is particularly annoying when you are in the middle of a meeting, or even though you tell the caller at the very beginning that you are not interested - but they still pester you with their products or services.

Hong Kong privacy watchdog's appeal for stricter regulations has been prompted by a newly released public opinion survey regarding P2P direct marketing calls. The 77-page survey - conducted by the University of Hong Kong and commissioned by the PCPD, aims to gauge the public's response to these calls. Compared with a similar survey conducted in 2008, the 2014 study revealed there has been a significant growth in unwanted P2P calls. More citizens are responding negatively to them - and fewer are reporting getting any benefits from the calls.

Unwanted calls are rising, listener interest is declining, and the number of people hanging up has doubled in six years. Along with a rise in telecommunication-linked scams, it is little wonder that the PCPD has concluded that P2P calls are "highly ineffective" in cementing deals. In most cases they are a waste of time - not only for potential customers, but businesses who hire sale teams hawking over the phone at random.

Society can't ignore an important fact revealed by PCPD's findings - that the overwhelming majority of respondents, over 99 percent interviewees, regard P2P calls as a nuisance. Therefore, while tougher regulations are needed to stop unsolicited commercial calls, the PCPD should also increase public awareness about their "forgotten" legal rights.

For companies engaged in phone-in peddling, large or small, it is time to change their marketing strategy and touting tactics. They may have brought some marginal benefits to a small group of consumers, but this was largely at the expense of the rest of us who don't like them. These companies should refrain from these tactics in future, because with stricter regulations, they will risk heavier penalties - even imprisonment.

(HK Edition 08/06/2014 page9)