Cold calling will "absolutely not" decrease with the new bill, says a data protection lawyer

A new bill is to be put to a vote on Wednesday in the National Assembly. It is expected to prohibit telephone canvassing of people who have not "expressed their prior consent."

Cold calling will "absolutely not" decrease with the new bill , believes Hélène Lebon, a lawyer specializing in data protection. On average, French people receive "six unwanted calls" per week, says Véronique Louwagie, the Minister Delegate for Trade, who supports the bill, and 97% say they are annoyed by these calls, according to a UFC-Que Choisir survey from October 2024. A new bill, which is due to be voted on Wednesday, May 21, proposes to ban these calls until the person has "expressed their prior consent" in a "free, specific, informed, unequivocal and revocable" manner.

"The people who are making these calls don't care that such laws exist," explains lawyer Hélène Lebon, who points out that "effective laws already exist," but that these laws are not being respected. So "before passing a new law, it's important to check that the old laws are being applied."

"The principle of prohibition without the individual's consent does not work," the lawyer points out. According to her, the main difficulty comes from the traceability of the files purchased by companies that want to canvass. To summarize, "companies buy files in good faith, sometimes for several thousand euros, but do not know that they are buying data from people who do not want to be canvassed." The problem lies with the intermediaries who collect these data files, and who "sometimes have problems" with transparency. It is therefore "pointless to sanction the final companies."

"It is impossible to truly seriously trace the consent process of a person who has agreed to be prospected," summarizes the lawyer specializing in data protection. According to her, the key lies above all in the application of the texts already voted, and in "more sanctions" for those who do not respect them.