Hello everyone and welcome to ZDTech, ZDNet’s daily editorial podcast. I am Pierre and today I invite you to lean with me on the strategy that the authorities intend to deploy to put an end to abusive canvassing on our mobile phone numbers. You have certainly all been victims at least once of this type of call. Yes you know, those who offer you offers to renovate your roof, to insulate your home or to train you using your training account.
Whether you have a house or not, whether you are active or retired, this type of cold calling certainly does not leave you unmoved. Especially since the phenomenon tends to worsen and is now a nuisance well known to everyone.
2% of cell phone owners say they never take a call
While the authorities are having difficulty stemming the phenomenon, the most obvious solution for many of us is to turn a deaf ear, at the risk of missing an important call.
According to figures provided by INSEE at the start of the year, 2% of cell phone owners say they never take a call, while 30% of them systematically filter their calls. The situation is even worse on our landlines: imagine, 17% of landline owners say they never pick up calls, while 26% of them only answer when they know the calling number.
To put an end to an intolerable situation from many points of view, Arcep has just struck a blow.
Avoid any “risk of shortage of 10-digit numbers”
The telecoms policeman has thus taken up the subject by simply depriving companies of the possibility of using telephone numbers starting with 06 and 07 from January 1, 2023. A measure that the Authority justifies by its desire to “to limit the nuisance suffered by end users receiving unsolicited calls or messages”, but also to avoid any “risk of shortage of 10-digit numbers”.
It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to put an end to abusive canvassing. As a reminder, the authorities are not at their first attempt in the field and various companies have already experienced a backlash in this area.
This is particularly the case of TotalEnergies, which was fined one million euros last June, among other things for its cold-calling methods which do not allow the right of access to data to be respected and the right of opposition.