Things that irritate: The nettle in contact with the skin, chlorine in the eyes and the call of teleoperators of electric and telephone companies in their struggle to scratch customers to their competitors. Even though it only three months ago the main Spanish teleoperators embodied their good intentions in a new deontological code that, among other promises, limited the schedule of commercial calls to work days between 9.00 in the morning and 21.00, the avalanche of Calls has not yet been braked. Less even when it comes to the electricity sector, which is immersed in a price war as a result of the increase in the bill.
Beyond the will of some and others, there are some firewalls that the user can implement to avoid harassment of these companies. The one with greater legal protection is the Robinson list. A record in which users can register if they want to avoid being called by companies with which they have not had any commercial links. This means that it does not work to get rid of those with which the consumer has had or has a contract.
The procedure is simple. The user should only register on the Robinson list website, providing some data: Name, DNI, key and email to confirm said registration. "It is a mechanism not yet known despite the fact that it has its origin in the 1990s," explains Enrique García, a spokesman for the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), from where they also recommend keeping all the posts of the registration process in the List in case it is necessary to provide evidence in future complaints. Within three months from the completion of enrollment in this file, the company will not be able to call or send emails and SMS to the consumer.
But this rule is not always fulfilled and some consumers continue to receive calls and messages. This may be due "the delay in updating the databases of the companies, which may take a time until it is carried out effectively" Aim Enrique García. In any case, it advises citizens who denounce these breaches even despite the fact that the process can be tedious, since ignoring the willing of users Companies are clashing facely with their right to the opposition of the treatment of their data for advertising purposes .
For this, the user must ask the teleworking to identify, as well as request the legal data of the company and, from there, follow the procedure to apply the right of access, rectification and opposition to treatment, collected in the Regulation of Data protection and supervised by the data protection agency.
In short, Law 3/2018 of data protection, as well as the General Regulations of Data Protection obliges companies to consult the Robinson list among other obligations to enforce consumer rights. In this context, the deontological codes of the companies come to reaffirm the commitment of the operators to comply with established rules.
In fact, the new code signed by the Spanish teleoperators in July of this year emphasizes the prohibition to call the users registered in the "Robinson List", limits three attempts the number of calls to non-contacted consumers and prevents contact in A minimum of three months to the user who has not shown interest in the commercial offer. In addition, it compromises the operators signature not to make commercial calls between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm. That is, some of the commitments collected in other legal texts.
Thus, these declarations of intentions remain on many occasions on wet paper. "Companies are committed to codes of behavior that are very good to present them to the public, but they almost never fulfill," criticizes Enrique García.
Therefore, there are other alternatives that despite not booting the root problem, amortize spam. That is, they do not prevent the user from receiving the first call, but having to constantly deal with companies. These "tricks", as defined by the OCU spokesperson, range from not taking long or hidden numbers calls to block spam, an option that can be activated on both Android and Apple devices by going to the settings menu.
However, the only way to make effective the protection of personal data from consumers will be, in the eyes of the OCU spokesman, through the elaboration of "a more incisive standard that can facilitate the consumer to oppose the treatment of his data ".
Date Of Update: 20 October 2021, 16:02
