Telephone Privacy

Telephone has become an indispensable part of everyone’s life, especially the mobile phone. It allows people to stay connected even when on the move and this revolution has changed the business dynamics to a huge extent. Many service providers these days indulge in aggressive telemarketing. It involves calling people up & briefing them about the services offered with the intent of convincing them to opt for the service of buy a product. “Telephone Privacy” refers to a person’s right to not receiving such undesired annoying telemarketing phone calls, which often disturb at odd hours.

The area of telemarketing has seen an exponential boom to go along with the increase in the usage of mobile phones in recent times. In today’s cut throat market, companies get access to the potential customer targets and their contact numbers from firms and other affiliate sources. Some firms maintain a database of people and their contact numbers, pulled in from sources where customers willfully provide their contact numbers in lieu of some service or product that they invest in. This malpractice of invading an individual’s “Telephone Privacy” has been a topic of hot debate with several laws and regulations being enforced around it.

Now-a-days, every service provider has been entrusted as per law to protect an individual’s personal contact information like Phone numbers. They have to also provide customers with an opt-out facility where people can choose to maintain their privacy or allow their data to be used to inform them about offers and stuff. To protect “Telephone Privacy”, several countries like United Kingdom, Australia etc. came up with National Do-Not-Disturb lists which maintain names of people who want to keep their “Telephone Privacy”from being invaded. Telemarketing services then have to exclude all the people which are included in the Do-Not-Disturb list.

Other sources feeding telemarketing agencies include Telephone Directories & Reverse Telephone Directories. Phone Phreaking agents who indulge in exploiting Public Telephone Networks and other telecommunication systems often contribute to this. If one has to protect his/her “Telephone Privacy”, one has to be pretty careful in providing their personal contact numbers only to trusted service providers. One has to be discreet in disclosing such information in the first place