Public complain about unsolicited calls from politicians

Seven official complaints have been made by members of the public about unsolicited calls, text messages or emails from election candidates.

The Data Protection Commissioner’s office confirmed it was investigating complaints on foot of the recent general election campaign, but did not provide details of which parties or candidates were involved.

Unsolicited electronic marketing is illegal under the 2011 electronic privacy regulations.

One woman who was contacted on her mobile number three times by a person asking her to vote for Renua leader Lucinda Creighton in Dublin Bay South told The Irish Times she was furious about it and had made a complaint to the commissioner.

Christine Murray from Dublin said she received two calls from a woman the day before the election.

“She used my name and asked me to give my number one vote to Lucinda Creighton. I rang off both times. I was waiting for news of my son who had just been released from hospital that week,” Ms Murray said.

“On the day of the election I got a third call. This time number was not withheld. She was a different woman but asking the same thing as the previous callers.”

Ms Murray said she told the woman to “get lost” and then called the logged number back but it was not answered.

“I left the message about breaking electoral rules. It was very harassing because you expect to open the door to politicians, you expect them to limit their hours of campaigning to the evenings. You expect that they know who has a vote because they buy the electoral register and that is all that you expect from them.”

Ms Murray said she had not given her number to any political campaign. She believed, however, that Ms Creighton could have had it from a contact with her office in 2010.

Ms Creighton said she would not have had access to the phone numbers of anyone she had not dealt with in the past and she had not engaged in any unsolicited marketing.

“There would have been phone calls to people I have worked with. That is normal. But certainly I would not have access to and I would not have sought access to any phone numbers of anybody who I hadn’t dealt with in the past or who hadn’t given me their phone number. That definitely did not happen and if it did happen I had nothing to do with it.”

Ms Creighton said she thought it was a “common occurrence” that people used numbers and email addresses in the run-up to an election.

“It happens all the time. Maybe that’s a grey area. I would be shocked if TDs all over the country weren’t emailing their constituents asking them to vote for them.”

All candidates had been warned by Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon in advance of the general election that they were not to make such contact with people who had not consented to their details being used in this way.

“In any democracy, candidates must be empowered to engage with the voters whom they wish to represent,” Ms Dixon said.

“However, there are obvious potential data protection implications to canvassing, particularly when it takes the form of contact by text, phone call, email or fax which constitutes ‘direct marketing’.”