Fines are in place for those behind automated text messages leading to premium rate telephone charges.
Most mobile phone owners have received irritating text messages offering prizes in exchange for a call to an expensive premium telephone number.
Such automated texts are illegal and those sending them can be fined €3,000 per text.
Joe Meade, Data Protection Commissioner, is working with Regtel to stamp out these unsolicited text messages. Examples of breaches of data protection are a recruitment agency which sent its client's details to its current employer, a direct marketing firm which offered a credit card to a ten year old, and the Department of Communications which was prevented from posting personal details of Freedom of Information applicants on its website.
The commissioner also said that new anti-terrorism measures need to be proportionate in nature and should not infringe on the right to privacy.
Anyone who processes sensitive information about an individual on computer is required to register with the commissioner.
Last year, the first successful prosecutions were taken against two firms of solicitors who had not registered with the Data Protection Commissioner. This year, the commissioner is targeting dentists, religious orders and politicians who have not registered.
The maximum penalty is a fine of €100,000.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 6 April 2004. The reporter is David McCullagh.
