On September 9 of this year, the Agency for Access to Public Information (the “Agency”) issued Resolution Nº 170/25, sanctioning an automotive company for the violations committed by its dealerships under Law Nº 26,951, which regulates the National “Do Not Call” Registry (the “Registry”).
This regulation prohibits making telephone calls to individuals listed in the Registry for the purpose of advertising, offering, selling, or giving away unsolicited goods or services. In this case, the automotive company had been the subject of more than two hundred complaints for breaching this prohibition, which prompted the Agency’s intervention.
In its response, the company denied having made such calls, arguing that they had likely been made by independent dealerships belonging to its commercial network, which operated autonomously and outside its direction or control. Consequently, it claimed that no liability could be attributed to it for those acts.
The Agency rejected this defense, noting that under Article 7 of Annex I to Regulatory Decree Nº 2,501/14 of Law Nº 26,951, when promotional contacts are carried out by a third party, the direct beneficiary of the campaign may be held liable pursuant to Article 11 of the Personal Data Protection Law Nº 25,326. This provision establishes the joint and several liability of the data transferor in the event of non-compliance by the transferee. Based on this reasoning, the automotive company was deemed jointly liable for the communications made by its dealerships, as it was the direct beneficiary of those promotional activities.
Accordingly, since the company failed to identify the entities or the telephone lines from which the reported calls had been made, and considering the joint nature of its liability, the Agency decided to impose a fine of ARS 3,000,000 (approximately USD 2,126).
