Re: re: What about the taxi companies?
Having it illegal in law is plenty.
AS LONG as the law also has statutory damages and a right of private action.
This kind of provision means that instead of _maybe_ facing investigation and $FINE from $GOVERNMENT_DEPARTMENT, firms which play fast and loose with privacy will find themselves facing the much more painful prospect of the death of a million papercuts, via small claims courts.
These provisions are why the USA's TCPA effectively stopped marketing faxes cold in the 1990s (the remaining outfits like fax.com were flat-out criminal and spent most of their time trying to evade the FCC, meaning they spent less time selling services to gullible customers) - it also turned out to be extremely effective against telemarketers who wouldn't stop calling and eliminated prerecorded calls almost entirely (there were exceptions for religion and charity calls).
The law made the marketers and the people hiring them joint and severally liable for breaches, which firstly discourages XYZ widget firm from simply finding another marketer when the one they use goes under, but also means that in the case of forged caller data (which is a wilful violation and triple damages), there's still a locally identifiable litigation target.
All of this stuff is illegal in the UK too, but with the chances of actually appearing in the ICO's crosshairs, businesses treat any fines as a cost of doing business.
The most telling part of the ICO's real stance is their pointed silence when people start raising the issue of private rights of action and statutory damages - which would help them in their own cases as at least one fine they imposed was slashed on appeal, specifically because the judge agreed with the marketer that the levels of distress imposed were unproven, therefore could not be valued monetarily.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
