HAKOM: The biggest so far recorded fall of complaints for illicit political campaigning

ZAGREB, September 12, 2016 -  Last  Saturday and Sunday, a positive trend was recorded regarding the  violations of the Electronic Communications Act in comparison to the previous instances of violations. The number of unsolicited promotional text messages has been significantly reduced compared to the last elections and the period before the start of pre-election silence. Thus, during the last weekend only 87 complaints were received by the citizens from 23 numbers in total. After review by the operator the unregistered numbers were blocked in order to prevent further harassment of all end-users of the electronic communications. It might be possible to identify the sender with further processing and inspection procedures will be carried out for those numbers as well.  The citizens’ cooperation with HAKOM and the operators has proved successful and as such not only did it prevent more extensive violations of the Electronic Communications Act but it helped in preventing abuses during the  election silence and silence on the election day.
 
During the campaign, before the weekend of elections only one case of unsolicited text messages was registered and it was sent from the registered number of one political party while other messages were sent from unregistered SIM cards (prepaid cards). The inspection supervision has already been initiated ex-officio for that specific case. If violation of the Electronic Communications Act is detected during the inspection, the misdemeanour proceedings will be initiated as well.
 
HAKOM invites citizens to continue reporting every SMS message or any other form of unsolicited electronic communications that can be considered a form of political or economic advertisement. Taking into consideration the fact that the elections are behind us, it primarily refers to the advertising messages not related to the election process persuading the users to call some of the advertised numbers at the specific tariff as well as to activate some of these services on short text codes. Calling these numbers or replying to the SMS short codes can cause unwanted costs to the consumers. Such advertising messages should be ignored and reported to HAKOM in order to block the number and if possible the sender will be identified and the perpetrator will be held legally responsible.

ABOUT HAKOM: HAKOM (www.hakom.hr) - Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries – ensures preconditions for a fair market competition, stable growth and environment for innovations in the electronic communications and postal services market. HAKOM protects users’ interests and the possibility of choice among various communications and postal services at affordable prices, defines sustainable competitive conditions for operators and service providers under fair conditions for return on investment, and provides support to economic growth, public services and the quality of life in the Republic of Croatia by using modern technologies. HAKOM’ strategic goals are: to promote regulation of the electronic communications and postal services market, to support growth of investments and innovations in the electronic communications and postal services market, to provide efficient use of limited resources, to accelerate the growth of broadband products and services, to provide affordable offers of communications and postal services, to provide protection and informing of users, to build an efficient and comprehensive information system, to define and implement efficient processes, and to acquire multi-disciplinary competencies in market regulation.