SUMMARY:

INFORMATION:

The system was enacted by a decree signed by the President of Uruguay (Luis Lacalle Pou) and included in the last Accountability Law.

"Those users of telecommunication services who do not wish to receive promotional calls, offers or gifts, can enroll in "Do Not Call" register. Such registry operates under the Communication Services Regulating Unit," the decree indicates.

 The Registry

The users interested in enrolling in the registry must communicate with their provider through a phone call or the web site. The provider will have 5 working-days to send the request to URSEC, who will update the registry.

The companies who wish to offer promotions, sell services or give away goods or services via telecommunication services must check URSEC database to verify if the number they wish to call is listed. In case it is, they must not call it.

If a company calls a user listed in "Do Not Call" registry, it might be penalized.

According to the Accountability Law that approves this system, the sanction will begin by a notification. If the company calls the number again, the elements used to commit the infringement may be confiscated, the company's activity may be suspended for 90 days, or the authorization or concession may even be revoked.

 The Work Made by STATUM

This procedure was implemented with STATUM's technology. The company counted on the participation of URSEC and the providers of telecommunication services of Uruguay: Antel, Claro and Movistar.

STATUM created two procedures to implement the system. One of them is to be used by the officers of the telecommunications providers. They must send the enrollment or enrollment cancellation requests to "Do Not Call" registry.

The other procedure, ""Do not call" Registry Query" is used by the call centers that make promotional calls. They have a database they send to STATUM to process the information. "We say: from your database, you must not call these numbers," commented Camila Zinola, functional analyst at STATUM.

For URSEC, the advantage of using ApiaTrámites is that the mentioned procedures require authorizations to be executed. The company or officer who will perform the procedure must be registered in URSEC. Also, the authorization to the officer must be registered. These authorizations are registered through some procedures that had been implemented by STATUM in the past ("Registry of Individuals and Companies" and "Administration of Online Procedures Users.") This allowed to focus on update and query procedures when implementing the project.

Mercedes Aramendía, director of URSEC, recognized STATUM's technology: "We have been working with this system for many years and it has operated correctly."