Companies could be fined £500,000 in order to combat the "out of control" trade in personal data, a government taskforce has said.

It has also called for company directors to be held responsible for nuisance calls. The taskforce has called for the threshold at which regulators are able to act on complaints to be lowered. It said cold-callers should only have to cause "annoyance" to consumers rather than "severe distress". Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) cold-callers could face fines of up to 20% of their annual turnover under the proposals. And Ofcom and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) will be able to share information on rogue companies. Up to one billion unwanted phone calls are received by members of the public in the UK each year, the taskforce said.

Out of control

Which? executive director and taskforce chairman Richard Lloyd said many British firms were "breaking the law". He said companies that were contacting people despite their having "opted out" of receiving direct marketing calls were acting illegally. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the way in which the law was enforced had not been good enough. Mr Lloyd said the trade in personal data was "out of control", adding that the "market in personal data needs properly investigating and sorting out". And he called on regulators to clamp down on the abuse of existing legislation......Read more here