Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 27 March 2025
146. Deputy Marie Sherlock asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the actions his Department has taken to regulate and provide for the creation of SMS scam text filters; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14845/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy Department is committed to tackling scam calls and texts across electronic communications networks and services.
It is necessary to explore a myriad of solutions as there is no one panacea for phone or SMS fraud. Instead, we must look to layer multiple protections together to truly mitigate the risks and safeguard consumers.
One intervention area that my Department has been considering, in conjunction with ComReg, is 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 could be applied. My Department is currently assessing the merits of each of these approaches.
One application would see the filter applied to all customer’s contracts by default. Officials in my Department are currently assessing the merits of this approach including any necessary legislation that would be required to implement it and the impact it would have 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”).
My Department's ongoing deliberation includes a weighing of 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.
Any solution pursued to tackle nuisance communications, legislative or otherwise, must be considered and weighed carefully against privacy and data protection concerns. I expect that this evaluation process being conducted by my officials will be concluded shortly and when the outcome of this process is known, it will then be possible to determine whether enabling legislation will be required and when it would likely be published.
My colleague, Minister Donohoe, may also wish to update on the revised Payment Services Directive, which aims to ensure a more secure payments market for consumers by increasing security requirements.
