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The Government was determined to contain the problem of spamming in Hong Kong and minimise the nuisance caused by unsolicited electronic messages, the Deputy Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, Mrs Marion Lai, said today (July 6).
Introducing the Unsolicited Electronic Messages (UEM) Bill at a press briefing today, Mrs Lai said the Bill sought to strike a balance between containing the spamming problem and also allowing electronic marketing to develop in Hong Kong as a legitimate promotion channel.
"Electronic communications are a low-cost means of market promotion for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which constitute about 98% of Hong Kong's business community. The legislative proposals therefore should not stifle the survival and growth of the SMEs," she said.
The UEM Bill proposes to regulate all types of commercial electronic messages, including email, fax, or pre-recorded messages, originating from Hong Kong, as well as those sent from overseas to Hong Kong.
Person-to-person voice or video messages without pre-recorded or synthesised elements will be excluded from the regulation.
"Person-to-person telemarketing calls require substantial manpower resources and time from the telemarketers. The extent to which they can cause a nuisance to recipients is much more limited than pre-recorded messages.
"Nevertheless, if it is decided in future to bring person-to-person telemarketing calls into the ambit of the Bill, such a decision could be effected quickly," Mrs Lai said.
Mrs Lai said the Bill should be effective in reducing unsolicited pre-recorded voice messages, fax messages and SMS/MMS messages that were sent locally. On unsolicited electronic mail messages, most of which originate outside Hong Kong, she stressed that international co-operation would be the key to tackling them. "The Bill provides a firm basis to enhance such co-operation, particularly with those jurisdictions with similar anti-spam laws."
The Bill proposes to adopt an "opt-out" regime, whereby a sender may send electronic messages to recipients, but must provide a functional unsubscribe facility through which a recipient can send a request to stop receiving further electronic messages at his electronic address.
To support the "opt-out" regime, the Bill will empower the Telecommunications Authority (TA) to set up "do-not-call registers" to facilitate recipients to opt out from receiving further commercial electronic messages from all electronic marketers. The registers will initially cover three types of electronic messages - pre-recorded voice or video messages, fax messages and SMS/MMS messages.
Mrs Lai pointed out that to avoid potential abuse of the information on the do-not-call registers, the Bill proposed to make it an offence for an electronic marketer to use the information from the registers for any purpose other than what it was intended.
Regarding the penalties, the TA will issue an enforcement notice to the organisations or people who fail to observe the rules and requirements and specify the steps to remedy the contravention. Failure to comply with an enforcement notice will be an offence punishable by fine up to $100,000 for the first conviction, and to $500,000 for a subsequent conviction.
Victims of UEMs can make civil claims for loss or damage against the party who sent the UEMs in contravention of the Bill, irrespective of whether the party was convicted.
Heavier penalties will be applied to the offences regarding the supply, acquisition or use of electronic address-harvesting software or harvested lists of electronic addresses for sending commercial electronic messages without the consent of registered users of electronic addresses. These contraventions will be prosecuted in court and subject to a fine of up to $1,000,000 and imprisonment for up to five years.
"For fraud and related activities in connection with spamming, we propose to impose even heavier penalty of a fine of any amount to be determined by the court and imprisonment of up to 10 years. The Police will be responsible for enforcing these fraud and related offences," Mrs Lai said.
The UEM Bill will be introduced into the Legislative Council on July 12.
Ends/Thursday, July 6, 2006
Issued at HKT 18:52
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