News for the opposition register. What fate for telemarketing?

On 13 April 2022, Presidential Decree no. 26 of 27 January 2022, which contains the regulation on the objections register, will come into force.
The decree regulates the right of individuals to object to the processing of their data for "the purpose of sending advertising or direct sales material, or for carrying out market research or commercial communication". The Decree will be operational from July 2022.

NEWS

• The definition of "contractor" included in the Decree now includes legal persons, bodies, and associations.
• The second change concerns the scope of application of the objections register: the previous regulation only protected telephone numbers in public directories (Article 129 "Privacy Code"), which was then extended to postal addresses. The new regulation now protects:
  • landline telephone numbers, whether in public directories or not
  • mobile phone numbers
  • postal addresses.
• Also worth mentioning is the extension of the right to object to forms of marketing carried out using automated calls, i.e. made by automated methods without the intervention of an operator, which was previously excluded from the scope of the objections register.
  The Italian Data Protection Authority pointed out the different regimes underlying automated marketing - for which prior consent is required ('opt-in') - and that carried out using operator calls, which can be done based on a legitimate interest of the Data Controllers ('opt-out').
  Therefore, registration in the opt-out register will include both the exercise of the right to object to operator calls and the withdrawal of consent to automated calls. It should in any event be made clear that 'automated' marketing will only be possible with the consent of the contractors.
• Operators must inform individuals that their data have been legitimately extracted from the lists of individuals referred to in Article 129 of the Code or from other sources and must provide them with the information they need to register in the public objections register.

RIGHTS OF CONTRACTORS

• Contractors can register in the opposition register free of charge.
•  Entry in the register will, as anticipated, be equivalent to opposing and withdrawing all previous consents given to marketing activities.
  There is one exception: consents given as part of specific contractual relationships in being or terminated not more than thirty days before, concerning the provision of goods or services will remain valid. For these consents, the right of revocation must be guaranteed by simplified procedures
•  The entry in the register of a number of the corresponding postal address in the contractors' lists shall be treated for an indefinite period unless the contractor withdraws the inscription.
•  When the Decree enters into force, the numbers (fixed telephone numbers) and the corresponding postal addresses already entered in the public objections register shall be treated as automatically entered in the new register.

THE OBLIGATIONS OF OPERATORS

 Operators who use telephone advertising and telephone sales systems or who carry out market research or commercial communications by telephone, including using paper mail, are obliged to consult the public register of oppositions

• monthly,
• and in any case before the start of any promotional campaign.

In this way, they can (or rather, should) update their lists periodically.

Operators can carry out marketing activities concerning all those contractors who have given their consent to marketing after registration in the opposition register.

The manner of consultation will be such that operators will not be able to extract the contact details of their contractors. In essence, operators will send the electronic list of contacts to the register manager who will compare it with the data contained in the opt-out register and will update it. These updated lists will be made available to operators for 15 days for telephone marketing and 30 days for "paper" marketing.

WHAT REMAINS UNRESOLVED

Within 60 days of the publication of the Decree, the Ministry of Economic Development must issue the decree defining the technical requirements and methods for making transcription in the opposition register of telephone numbers not published in contractors' directories operational.