Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 90: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources if he has given instructions to or received reports from the regulator with a view to curtailing the activities of firms involved in unsolicited e-mail, spam or mobile phone texts; his plans to combat this menace, unilaterally or through co-operation with EU colleagues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14532/05]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 176: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources if he has given instructions to or received reports from the regulator with a view to curtailing the activities of firms involved in unsolicited e-mail, spam or mobile phone texts; his plans to combat this menace, unilaterally or through co-operation with EU colleagues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14762/05]I

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 90 and 176 together.

Due to concerns raised by member states in relation to the sending of unsolicited e-mails for direct marketing purposes via the Internet, mobile phones and other electronic communications media, the EU introduced Directive 2002/58/EC — the directive on privacy and electronic communications. This directive was transposed into national law in November 2003 via the Data Protection and Privacy Regulations 2003, SI No. 535 of 2003. The regulations place restrictions on the sending of unsolicited emails for direct marketing purposes via the internet, mobile phones and other electronic communications media.

Responsibility for the enforcement of the regulations rests with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. A person found guilty of a breach of the regulations is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €3,000 per message.

Spam is a global problem and the capacity of an individual member state to control it in isolation is very limited because spam can originate outside its jurisdiction. The EU and the OECD have set up working groups to explore the options for controlling spam — the EU in the context of its member states and the OECD in the wider global context. My Department and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner are represented on the aforementioned groups. Both groups are cooperating with each other towards the development of measures, such as the following: adoption of the aforementioned directive by all EU member states; international co-operation in investigation and enforcement; education and awareness among consumers on prevention and the technical and legal solutions available to them to control spam; self-regulation among service providers, such as a code of practice; development of technical solutions by service providers such as blocking and filtering that will keep false positives, that is, the blocking of legitimate e-mails, to a minimum.