Anti-spammers: Deputy Secretary for Commerce, Industry & Technology Marion Lai and Principal Assistant Secretary Tony Li.

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance will be launched in two phases from June 1, the Commerce, Industry & Technology Bureau says.

Phase I of the ordinance prohibits the use of unscrupulous techniques to send a large quantity of commercial electronic messages, as well as fraud and other illicit activities related to their multiple sending. It will be effective from June 1. Phase II provides an "opt-out" regime and will be effective by year's-end.

The ordinance covers electronic messages including pre-recorded promotional voice messages, fax, email, SMS and MMS messages. The messages covered must be for commercial promotion purposes, and must have a Hong Kong link, the Deputy Secretary for Commerce, Industry & Technology Marion Lai and the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) Assistant Director So Tat-foon said today.

A Hong Kong link means the message should originate from Hong Kong, or authorised to be sent by a person in Hong Kong or a Hong Kong company; or the message is received in Hong Kong or sent to a Hong Kong telephone number.

Person-to-person interactive communications will be exempted. Messages sent in response to the recipient's request, invoices or receipts, non-commercial messages, as well as sound or video broadcasting services will also be exempted.

In Phase I, the part of the ordinance that prohibits the use unscrupulous techniques to send out large volumes of messages will be enforced by OFTA. The maximum penalty will be a fine of up to $1 million and five years in prison.

Unscrupulous techniques include using electronic address harvesting software to send commercial electronic messages without the consent of recipients, and generating electronic addresses by automated processes to send a unsolicited electronic message.

The part of ordinance that prohibits fraud and other illicit activities related to the sending of commercial electronic messages will also become effective during Phase I. Related activities include accessing a telecommunications device without authorisation to send multiple commercial electronic messages, and falsifying header information in multiple commercial electronic messages.

This part of ordinance will be enforced by Police and warrants up to 10 year's jail.

From June 1, recipients can file complaints on unsolicited electronic messages through OFTA's website, or by calling 2961 6333.

Do-not-call registers

The "opt-out" regime will take place in Phase II. In this phase, Do-not-call Registers will be set up, and the senders of commercial electronic messages must provide accurate sender information, and provide unsubscribe facilities and honour unsubscribe requests within 10 working days.

Senders will also be required to stop sending commercial electronic message to the addresses registered in do-not-call registers, not withhold calling line identification information, and not send electronic mail messages with misleading headings.

Mrs Lai said Phase II can only be implemented at the end of this year because it takes time to set up Do-not-call Registers, codes of practice must be discussed, and businesses need time to update their systems.

Do-not-call Registers will be open for public use by year's-end, however, it is applicable to pre-recorded voice or video messages, fax messages, SMS and MMS messages only, excluding emails.

Mrs Lai said that according to research results in the US, if email addresses are to be included in the Do-not-call Registers, they may become a source of information for spammers, so will be excluded from registers.

The office may issue enforcement notices to those who breach the rules in the opt-out regime, requiring them to take steps to remedy contraventions within specified timeframes.

The penalty for non-compliance is a $100,000 fine for first conviction, and up to $500,000 for subsequent ones.

For more information click here, or call 2961 6333.