My Department is committed to combatting nuisance communications, the unsolicited communications via voice calls or SMS text messages that are aimed at large groups of the population and which continue to have adverse effects upon the citizens and business of Ireland.
While there is no one approach adopted across all EU Member States, many of our peers across the EU are, like Ireland, considering and adopting multiple approaches to combat scam SMS, thereby providing a dynamic, layered protection for consumers. This includes potential legislative solutions, including legislating for content inspection on carrier messaging, often referred to as an 'SMS Filter', akin to an email spam filter.
There are a number of ways content inspection on carrier messaging can be applied and each application requires its own considerations and evaluation, along with an impact assessment on existing protections of end user rights in relation to interception and data protection, as provided in the ePrivacy Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
Some EU Member States have introduced legislation to enable blanket SMS filtering on all network contracts, without seeking consumer consent. My Department carried out an extensive evaluation of this approach and has concluded that legislation to allow this application of the SMS filter would not meet the bar of proportionality necessary to dampen privacy protections provided for in other areas of Irish law. This conclusion was reached after weighing the proportionality of such a response, and the impact on consumer's privacy rights, against the scale of the problem and the potential positive benefits of this course of action.
While this particular application of the SMS filter will not be pursued, other approaches, including those that would seek consumer consent in advance of the introduction of a SMS filter, are still being explored, along with what legislative instruments may be required to ensure that operators offer this type of service to their customers.
