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Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) by the Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, Mr Joseph W P Wong, at the media session on the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill at the West Wing lobby of Central Government Offices this afternoon (July 6):
SCIT: Following the agreement of the Chief Executive-in-Council, we will introduce the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill into the Legislative Council next Wednesday, July 12. The text of the Bill will be gazetted tomorrow.
The primary objective of the Bill is to tackle unsolicited commercial electronic messages, including emails, fax messages, short messages, voice and video calls, so as to reduce the nuisance caused to the public. To allow limited forms of electronic marketing activities and to address the concern of small and medium sized enterprises, the Bill will not at this stage regulate real-time person-to-person telemarketing calls.
There are two main regulative proposals in the Bill. The first is to establish an ˇ§opt-outˇ¨ regime, whereby the sender of a commercial regulated message is required to provide an electronic address to enable the receiver to request the sender not to send further messages.
The second proposal is that any person who does not wish to receive unsolicited electronic messages regulated by the Bill can request to have his electronic address included in a ˇ§do-not-call registerˇ¨ established by the Telecommunications Authority. This of course will save the trouble of sending unsubscribed messages to individual senders.
If any organisation or individual contravenes the above rules, the Telecommunications Authority will issue an enforcement notice to require these to be remedied. Failure to comply with the enforcement notice will be an offence punishable by a fine up to $100,000 for the first conviction, and up to $500,000 for the second and subsequent convictions.
The Bill will also propose to prohibit the supply, acquisition or use of address-harvesting software and harvested-address lists, in order to sanction those acts that support spamming. These offences, which are regarded as more serious, will upon conviction, be punishable by a fine up to $1 million and imprisonment up to five years.
Another proposal of the Bill is to empower the victims of unsolicited electronic messages to make civil claims for loss or damage against the party who sent the messages in contravention of the Bill, irrespective of whether the party had been convicted.
These proposals are made on the basis of the outcome of the consultations which we have undertaken in the early part of this year. We believe they have struck a right balance between allowing limited telemarketing activities, and protecting the interests of individuals not to be harassed by all these unsolicited messages. And I am confident that, by and large, subject to no doubt the detailed scrutiny by Legislative Council members on the individual clauses and wording in the Bill, I am confident that this Bill will eventually be passed in the Legislative Council.
Reporter: A question on enforceability. Spam, whether it is spam on telephone, or whether it is electronic spam in email box, does not have to originate from Hong Kong. It can be from anywhere in the world. So how can you enforce spam that comes from external location?
SCIT: Of course, spam could originate from anywhere in this world. In so far as enforcement is concerned, let me first of all make the point that our Bill covers all electronic messages with a Hong Kong connection, i.e. if it is originated from Hong Kong, or is sent to Hong Kong, it is within the ambit of the Bill. In so far as enforcement against those acts which originate from overseas, we would have to rely on our enforcement agencies working with enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions. It is a fact that outside Hong Kong, there are similar regulations and similar provisions in many countries such as the United States, the UK, and Australia. So no doubt this is an area which we would have to seek international co-operation.
Reporter: Under this proposed legislation, what would be the responsibility and liabilities of the ISPs, Internet Service Providers, and in telemarketing, will telemarketers migrate from automated calls to live telephone calls in order to evade this legislation?
SCIT: At this stage, we do not intend to regulate real time live calls for the reasons I have explained, because we want to allow limited telemarketing activities, because one has to address the concern of small and medium enterprises, after all, which have been doing all this live marketing for many years. There is also a question of employment implications if we stop that. So certainly it is not against the law as we propose to do that. I mention at this stage, because I want to hear views from the Legislative Councillors and I would like to monitor the situation more closely, because the legislation, if passed, allows the Secretary, who is myself, to expand the scope of control, if necessary, through subsidiary legislation.
Reporter: What about the ISPsˇK?
SCIT: The ISPs, of course, will be required to co-operate and provide information as necessary, in order to enable our enforcement actions to be taken. And of course, if the ISPs or indeed any other parties are found to be helping these spam activities, they themselves, of course, may also be liable to offences under this legislation.
Reporter: By helping, do you mean sellingˇK ?
SCIT: This is something we have to look at on the merits of the case. The whole idea is this legislation ensures that if a person does not want to receive these unsolicited electronic messages, then no person should send them without breaching the law. And if any person is helping a person to send these message to break the law, and of course that person, subject to the merits of individual case, may also be liable to offences under the legislation.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, July 6, 2006
Issued at HKT 18:57
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