Government proposes amendments to Act on Electronic Communications Services

The Government proposes a number of individual amendments to the Act on Electronic Communications Services. The proposal would change certain temporary provisions to ones that are in force until further notice and would update the supervision tasks of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom.

According to the government proposal, the provisions of the Act on Electronic Communications Services concerning the confidentiality of radio communications and partial prohibition of telemarketing to mobile phone subscriptions would remain in force until further notice. The period of validity of the provisions ends in summer 2024.

The aim of the amendments is to retain the possibility for statistical processing of traffic data in such a way that the protection of privacy and personal data and of the secrecy of confidential communications are not compromised. Another aim is to protect consumers against market disturbances associated with telemarketing.

In addition, the Government proposes that the supervision of compliance with the Regulation on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union (Roaming Regulation) and Regulation on electronic communication in the internal market would be included in the tasks of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom.

The government proposal concerning these amendments was circulated for comments between 21 February and 15 March 2024. Comments were requested on a broader proposal. For the subsequent preparatory work this was divided into two separate proposals to streamline and facilitate the consideration by Parliament. This first proposal contains the proposed amendments with the tightest schedule. The second government proposal will also be submitted to Parliament during the spring term 2024.

Next steps

A referral debate will be held on the government proposal in a Parliament plenary session. Information on the date of the session will be given on Parliament’s website. The proposal will be considered by the Committee and, after it has given its report, the processing of the matter will continue in the plenary session.

The legislative amendments should enter into force in late June or early July before the period of validity of the temporary provisions ends.

Inquiries:

Hanna Laurila, Senior Ministerial Adviser, hanna.laurila(at)gov.fi, tel. +358 295 342 025