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Following is a question by the Hon Albert Chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Frederick Ma, in the Legislative Council today (December 12):
Question:
Some members of the public have recently reflected to me that faxed advertisements incessantly cause nuisance to them, and the situation has not improved even after they have their fax numbers registered on the "Not-to-Call" list kept by the Office of the Telecommunications Authority. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of complaints about junk fax received by the Government and fixed telecommunications network services (FTNS) operators in each of the past three years and, among such complaints, the number of those involving fax numbers on the "Not-to-Call" list;
(b) of the number of fax numbers added to the "Not-to-Call" list in each of the past three years; and
(c) whether it knows the number of cases in each of the past three years in which FTNS operators disconnected the fax lines of their subscribers who had been found to have sent junk fax?
Reply:
Madam President,
The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance (the Ordinance) was passed by the Legislative Council in May 2007 to regulate unsolicited electronic messages, including unsolicited commercial fax messages. The Ordinance will be implemented in two phases. The first phase, starting from June 1, 2007, tackles fraud and other illicit activities related to the sending of multiple commercial electronic messages, such as using harvested-address lists and hacking into computers to send commercial electronic messages, whereas the second phase, which will come into force on December 22, 2007, will establish the rules for sending commercial electronic messages.
In the absence of statutory regulation before the enactment of the Ordinance, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) issued to the fixed telecommunication network services (FTNS) operators in 2005 the "Code of Practice on the Procedures for Handling Complaints against Senders of Unsolicited Fax Advertisements" (the Code) to serve as a transitional measure for implementation by the industry to tackle junk fax. Although the Code is for voluntary compliance and has no legal effect, it has been followed and implemented by all FTNS operators.
According to the established arrangements, members of the public can request their FTNS operators to put their fax numbers on the "Not-to-Call" list. Senders of fax advertisements should observe the list and should not send any message to the listed numbers. Members of the public who still receive junk fax after registration can report to or file complaints with their operators. After investigation, the operator can disconnect all the lines provided to a subscriber at a registered address according to the contractual terms if there are two established complaints against the subscriber for sending out junk fax.
With the full implementation of the Ordinance on December 22, 2007, the above transitional measure will be replaced by the newly enacted rules about sending commercial electronic messages prescribed in Part 2 of the Ordinance. By then, all the commercial electronic messages sent in the form of fax have to provide "unsubscribe facility" to allow the recipient to opt out from receiving further messages by sending an unsubscribe request to the sender. The sender must cease sending fax advertisements within 10 working days from the day on which the unsubscribe request is sent. In addition, a sender is not allowed to send fax advertisements to those fax numbers listed on the Do-Not-Call Registers established by the Telecommunications Authority (the TA) under the Ordinance, unless consent has been obtained from the recipient. The TA may issue enforcement notice to those senders who contravene the above rules to request for a remedy. Failure to comply with the enforcement notice is an offence liable to a fine up to $100,000 for the first conviction, and up to $500,000 for subsequent convictions. In the case of a continuing offence, there will be a further fine of $1,000 for every day during which the offence continues. Since the Ordinance provides for rules with legal effect as well as deterrent sanctions, we consider that it will be more effective than the transitional measure in combating the problem of junk fax.
My reply to the questions raised by the Hon Albert Chan is as follows:
(a) Prior to the commencement of the Ordinance in June this year, there was no legislation in Hong Kong that regulated the promotion of products or services through fax messages. The number of public enquiries on junk fax received by OFTA in the past three years is set out as follows:
Year Total
2005 1 274
2006 1 350
2007 (January to May) 1 075
From June to the end of November this year, OFTA received about 550 reports on junk fax.
On the other hand, according to the information provided by the operators, the number of complaints they received about junk fax and the number of those complaints involving fax numbers on the "Not-to-Call" list in the past three years are as follows:
Year 2005 2006 2007
(as at July)
Complaints about 42 462 20 653 47 124
junk fax
Complaints 13 949 11 021 4 102
involving fax (8.2%)* (6.1%)* (1.8%)*
numbers on the
"Not-to-Call"list
Total numbers 170 936 179 587 233 960
of fax numbers
on the "Not-to-Call" list
*Note: Figures in brackets represent the percentage of complaint cases against the total number of fax numbers on the "Not-to-Call" list.
(b) The number of fax numbers added to the "Not-to-Call" list in each of the past three years is as follows:
Year No. of newly added
fax numbers
2005 28 756
2006 8 651
2007 (as at mid-November) 54 373
(c) According to the information provided by the operators, the number of fax lines disconnected over the past three years due to two established complaints against their subscribers for sending out junk fax is as follows:
Year No. of fax lines
disconnected
2005 159
2006 402
2007 (as at end-July) 16
Ends/Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Issued at HKT 13:00
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