Public Act 93-0049
HB3407 Enrolled LRB093 10501 MBS 10755 b
AN ACT concerning business transactions.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Restricted Call Registry Act is amended
by changing Sections 10, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 as follows:
(815 ILCS 402/10)
Sec. 10. Prohibited calls. Beginning October July 1,
2003, it is a violation of this Act for any no person or
entity to may make or cause to be made any telephone
solicitation calls to any residential subscriber more than 45
days after the person or entity obtains the Registry or any
update of the Registry on which the residential subscriber's
telephone number or numbers first appear on the Registry.
(Source: P.A. 92-795, eff. 8-9-02.)
(815 ILCS 402/20)
Sec. 20. Registry; establishment and maintenance.
(a) The Illinois Commerce Commission shall establish and
provide for the operation of a Restricted Call Registry,
which shall contain a list of the telephone numbers of
residential subscribers who do not wish to receive telephone
solicitation calls. The national "do-not-call" registry
established and maintained by the Federal Trade Commission,
pursuant to 16 C.F.R. 310.4 (b)(1)(iii)(B), shall serve as
the Registry provided by this Act. The Illinois Commerce
Commission may contract with a private vendor to establish
and maintain the Registry if the contract requires the vendor
to provide
(b) Residential subscribers may cause their telephone
number or numbers to appear on the Registry in a printed hard
copy format, in an electronic format, and in any manner other
format prescribed by the Illinois Commerce Commission.
(c) Any person or entity conducting telephone
solicitation calls as defined by Section 5(e) of this Act
within the State of Illinois shall purchase the Restricted
Call Registry and updates no less frequently than every 3
months exclusively from the Federal Trade Illinois Commerce
Commission. Failure to do so prior to conducting telephone
solicitation calls is a violation subject to the penalties
provided for in Section 35 of this Act.
(d)(b) No later than January 1, 2003, The Illinois
Commerce Commission may shall adopt rules consistent with
this Act that the Illinois Commerce Commission deems
necessary and appropriate to fully implement this Act. The
rules shall include, at a minimum, methods by which any
person or entity desiring to make telephone solicitation
calls may obtain access to the Registry to avoid calling the
telephone numbers of residential subscribers included in the
Registry.
(c) The fee for obtaining the Registry and updates shall
be set forth in rules adopted by the Illinois Commerce
Commission. The fee may not exceed $1,000 annually and may
not exceed the costs incurred by the Commission in the
preparation, maintenance, production, and distribution of the
Registry. All copies requested in a printed hard copy format
shall be assessed a per page fee to be determined by rules
adopted by the Illinois Commerce Commission.
(d) The Illinois Commerce Commission shall update the
Registry and make information in the Registry available on a
quarterly basis in an electronic format that can be sorted by
individual fields and, if deemed appropriate by the Illinois
Commerce Commission, in one or more other formats.
(e) If the Federal Communications Commission or Federal
Trade Commission establishes a single national database of
telephone numbers of subscribers who object to receiving
telephone solicitations, which restricts both inter-state and
intra-state calls and at a minimum covers all telephone
solicitations covered by this Act, this State shall
discontinue the Registry.
(e)(f) Information pertaining to residential subscribers
Information in the Registry is confidential and shall be
afforded reasonable privacy protection except as necessary
for compliance with Sections 10 and 25 and this Section or in
a proceeding or action under Section 35 or 40. The
information is not a public record under the Freedom of
Information Act.
(g) The Illinois Commerce Commission shall periodically
obtain subscription listings of residential subscribers in
this State who have arranged to be included in any national
do-not-call list and add those names to the Registry.
(f)(h) A person or entity that obtains the Registry
shall not use the Registry for any purpose other than to
comply with this Act. These unlawful purposes include, but
are not limited to, causing a subscriber to participate in
and be included in the Registry without the subscriber's
knowledge or consent, selling or leasing the Registry to a
person other than a telephone solicitor, selling or leasing
by a telephone solicitor of the Registry, and a telephone
solicitor, either directly or indirectly, persuading a
subscriber with whom it has an established business
relationship to place his or her telephone number in the
Registry, if the solicitation has the effect of preventing
competitors from contacting that solicitor's customers.
(g)(i) No person or entity that sells, leases,
exchanges, or rents telephone solicitation lists, except for
directory assistance and telephone directories sold by
telephone companies or their affiliates, shall include in
those lists those telephone numbers that appear in the
current Registry.
(Source: P.A. 92-795, eff. 8-9-02.)
(815 ILCS 402/25)
Sec. 25. Notice of establishment of Registry.
Enrollment. (a) The Illinois Commerce Commission shall
provide notice to residential subscribers of the
establishment of the Registry.
(b) The Illinois Commerce Commission shall establish any
method deemed appropriate for a residential subscriber to
notify the Illinois Commerce Commission that the residential
subscriber wishes to have its telephone number included in or
remain on the Registry.
(c) The Commission may, by rule, set an initial fee
which shall not exceed $5 per residential subscriber for
inclusion on the Restricted Call Registry. The Commission
shall review the revenues and expenditures of the Restricted
Call Registry on a biennial basis and shall, by rule, reduce
the fee accordingly if revenues exceed expenditures. The
Commission may adopt rules and procedures governing the
acceptance of payment by credit card and may enter into such
agreements as necessary to accept payment by credit card.
(d) A residential subscriber's telephone number shall be
deleted from the Registry upon the residential subscriber's
written request.
(e) Enrollment in the Registry is effective from the
start of the quarter following the date of enrollment for a
term of 5 years or until the residential subscriber
disconnects or changes his or her telephone number, unless
the subscriber complies with the notice provision contained
in this Section, whichever occurs first. The residential
subscriber shall be permitted to extend their enrollment for
additional 5 year periods and shall not be subject to any fee
for this extension. The residential subscriber is
responsible for notifying the Illinois Commerce Commission of
any changes in his or her telephone number. The Illinois
Commerce Commission shall use its best efforts to notify
enrolled residential subscribers before the end of the 5-year
enrollment term of the option to extend their enrollment.
Residential subscribers who do not indicate their desire to
extend their enrollment before the end of the 5-year term
shall be given a one quarter grace period before being
removed from the Registry.
(Source: P.A. 92-795, eff. 8-9-02.)
(815 ILCS 402/30)
Sec. 30. Public notification. The Illinois Commerce
Commission shall work with local exchange telecommunications
companies to notify disseminate to their customers
information about the availability of and instructions for
requesting information educational literature from the
Illinois Commerce Commission. The Illinois Commerce
Commission may enter into agreements with those companies for
the dissemination of the educational literature. Local
exchange telecommunications companies shall provide this
notice disseminate the educational literature at least once
per year in a message contained in customers' bills or a
notice in the information section of all telephone
directories distributed to customers and shall include on
their website a link to the ICC's web page for the Registry.
The Illinois Commerce Commission shall include, on its
Internet web site, information to customers regarding their
right to be included in the Registry and the various methods,
including notice to the Illinois Commerce Commission, of
being included in the Registry. The Illinois Commerce
Commission shall develop language to be used by local
exchange telecommunications carriers and shall make
information available on its web site shall have this
literature developed for dissemination to the public no later
than July March 1, 2003.
(Source: P.A. 92-795, eff. 8-9-02.)
(815 ILCS 402/35)
Sec. 35. Violation; relief.
(a) The Illinois Commerce Commission may initiate
administrative proceedings in accordance with rules adopted
under this Act relating to a knowing and willful violation of
Section 10.
(b) If it is determined after a hearing that a person
has knowingly and willfully violated one or more provisions
of this Section, the Illinois Commerce Commission may assess
a fine not to exceed $1,000 for the first violation and not
to exceed $2,500 for a second or subsequent violation. Each
individual violation of Section 10 of this Act shall be a
separate and distinct offense under this Section. In
imposing a penalty under this Section, the Commission shall,
at a minimum, consider the following factors:
(1) whether the offense was knowing or willful;
(2) whether the entity committing the offense has a
prior history of non-compliance with this Act;
(3) the offender's relative ability to pay a
penalty;
(4) whether the offender has or has not cooperated
with the Commission in pursuing the investigation; and
(5) such other special, mitigating or aggravating
circumstances as the Commission may find to exist.
(c) Any proceeding conducted under this Section is
subject to the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act.
(d) Nothing in this Section may be construed to restrict
any right that any person may have under any other law or at
common law.
(e) No action or proceeding may be brought under this
Section:
(1) more than one year after the person bringing
the action knew or should have known of the occurrence of
the alleged violation; or
(2) more than one year after the termination of any
proceeding or action arising out of the same violation or
violations by the State of Illinois, whichever is later.
(f) The remedies, duties, prohibitions, and penalties in
this Act are not exclusive and are in addition to all other
causes of action, remedies, and penalties provided by law.
(g) There is created in the State Treasury a special
fund to be known as the Restricted Call Registry Fund. All
fees and fines collected in the administration and
enforcement of this Act shall be deposited into the Fund.
Moneys in the Fund shall, subject to appropriation, be used
by the Illinois Commerce Commission for implementation,
administration, and enforcement of this Act.
(Source: P.A. 92-795, eff. 8-9-02.)
(815 ILCS 402/40)
Sec. 40. Exemption.
(a) A person or entity may not be held liable for
violating this Act if:
(1) the person or entity has obtained copies of the
Registry and updates in compliance with this Act each
updated Registry from the Illinois Commerce Commission
and has established and implemented written policies and
procedures related to the requirements of this Act;
(2) the person or entity has trained its personnel
in the requirements of this Act;
(3) the person or entity maintains records
demonstrating compliance with subdivisions (1) and (2) of
this Section and the requirements of this Act; and
(4) any subsequent telephone solicitation is the
result of unintentional error.
(b) A person or entity that has entered into a contract
with another person or entity to make telephone solicitations
on its behalf is not liable for a violation of this Act by
the person or entity making telephone solicitations under the
contract if the person or entity on whose behalf the
telephone solicitations were made has provided written
notification to the person or entity making telephone
solicitations under the contract that it is necessary to
comply with the provisions of this Act when making telephone
solicitations.
(Source: P.A. 92-795, eff. 8-9-02.)
Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon
becoming law.