The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has disassociated itself from Unsolicited Electronic Communications (UECs) and spam messages being sent to its customers.
This comes after concerns were raised by members of the public who received campaign messages from some political parties ahead of the general elections in December.
“The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has noted with concern, customer complaints across various
media relating to a recent political party’s unsolicited message. The Chamber would like to state
unequivocally that its members, the mobile network operators (MNOs), are politically neutral, and their
policies and principles prohibit the promotion of any political party,” says the Chamber in a statement.
Providing better clarification as to how these text messages are sent to the public, the Chamber explained that “political parties rely on content providers to do bulk SMS transfers on their behalf. Content providers build databases of phone numbers from various sources including online, social media etc. Political Parties have access to data which they get through their own sources including their fundraising activities and other events.”
The Chamber however insisted that no Mobile Network Operator has sent out campaign messages for and on behalf of any political party.
It also stated that its members do not give out contacts of their subscribers to content providers or marketers for targeting.
The statement further asks that “customers who wish to unsubscribe from UECs of any kind should type STOP (space) SENDERS’ NAME and send to the number from which the message or call was sent to stop receiving such messages”, adding that “if the UECs persists, contact your service provider to omit you from the promotional list and the Regulator as last resort.”
