Law / Communications

Communications law, instrument by instrument

Every communications law instrument LexLint holds, grouped by the place that made it. Choose which stages of law to show: the map, the counts and the tables all answer to that choice. To see every area of law, follow Law in the breadcrumb above.

Where communications law applies, at the stages chosen below. A darker fill means more instruments at those stages. Point at, click, or tab to a place for the communications law that applies there.
  • 1
  • 5
  • 10
  • 20+
  • instruments shown
  • law on file, none at these stages
  • tracked, no law on file
  • not tracked
The United States is drawn as its states; its federal instruments are a row group in Countries below.

Stages of law

Stages of law to show

34 instruments in 7 places.

No commencement date on file for 7.

Unions3 in 1 place

Law made above the state, binding its members.

Stage Instrument In force from
European Union eu 3 instruments
ePrivacy DirectiveDirective 2002/58/EC, Art. 5(1) and (2)
Cookie DirectiveDirective 2002/58/EC, Art. 5(3)
ePrivacy DirectiveDirective 2002/58/EC, Art. 13

Countries31 in 6 places

Grouped by region, the European Union heading its member states as a block; alphabetical within each group.

Stage Instrument In force from
Europe
European Union · 2 member states
Germany de 5 instruments
Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb, Commercial Electronic MessagesUWG § 7 Abs. 2 Nr. 2 und 3, Abs. 3 not recorded
Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb, Documentation of Consent to Telephone AdvertisingUWG § 7a
Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb, Telephone Advertising ConsentUWG § 7 Abs. 1 und Abs. 2 Nr. 1 not recorded
Strafgesetzbuch, Violation of the Confidentiality of the Spoken WordStGB § 201 not recorded
Telekommunikation-Digitale-Dienste-Datenschutz-Gesetz, Protection of Privacy in Terminal EquipmentTDDDG § 25
Ireland ie 5 instruments
Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983, Prohibition on Interception of Telecommunications MessagesPostal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983, s. 98, as amended by the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993, s. 13
Irish ePrivacy RegulationsS.I. No. 336 of 2011, reg. 5(1)-(2)
Irish ePrivacy RegulationsS.I. No. 336 of 2011, reg. 5(3)-(5)
Irish ePrivacy RegulationsS.I. No. 336 of 2011, reg. 13(1)-(4), (7), (10)-(12)
Irish ePrivacy RegulationsS.I. No. 336 of 2011, reg. 13(5)-(6), (8)-(9)
United Kingdom gb 4 instruments
Investigatory Powers Act 2016, Unlawful Interception and Lawful Business MonitoringInvestigatory Powers Act 2016, ss. 3, 8, 44 and 46; S.I. 2018/356
PECR, Automated Calls, Facsimile and Live Telephone Calls for Direct MarketingPECR (S.I. 2003/2426), regs. 19-21, 21A, 21B and 24
PECR, Electronic Mail for Direct Marketing PurposesPECR (S.I. 2003/2426), regs. 22 and 23
PECR, Storage of and Access to Information on Terminal EquipmentPECR (S.I. 2003/2426), reg. 6 and Sch. A1, as substituted by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025
Americas
Canada ca 4 instruments
Canada's Anti-Spam LegislationS.C. 2010, c. 23, s. 8
Canada's Anti-Spam LegislationS.C. 2010, c. 23, ss. 6, 9 to 11
Criminal Code, Interception of Private CommunicationsR.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, ss. 184, 193, 194 not recorded
Telecommunications Act, Unsolicited Telecommunications and the National Do Not Call ListS.C. 1993, c. 38, ss. 41, 41.1 to 41.7, 72.01 not recorded
United States us 7 instruments
CAN-SPAM Act15 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.; 16 CFR Part 316
Restrictions on Mobile Service Commercial Messages47 CFR 64.3100
Telemarketing Sales Rule16 CFR Part 310; 15 U.S.C. 6101-6108 not recorded
Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Autodialer and Artificial or Prerecorded Voice Calls47 U.S.C. 227(b); 47 CFR 64.1200(a)
Telephone Consumer Protection Act, National Do Not Call Registry and Company-Specific List47 U.S.C. 227(c); 47 CFR 64.1200(c)-(d)
Truth in Caller ID Act47 U.S.C. 227(e)
Wiretap Act18 U.S.C. 2511, 2520 not recorded
Australia au 6 instruments
Do Not Call Register Act 2006, Unsolicited Marketing FaxesDo Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth), ss. 12A-12C, 24-25, 30, Sch. 1A, Sch. 2
Do Not Call Register Act 2006, Unsolicited Telemarketing CallsDo Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth), ss. 11-12, 24-25, 30, Sch. 1, Sch. 2
Spam Act 2003, Address-Harvesting Software and Harvested-Address ListsSpam Act 2003 (Cth), ss. 20-22, 24-25
Spam Act 2003, Unsolicited Commercial Electronic MessagesSpam Act 2003 (Cth), ss. 16-18, 24-25, 28, Sch. 1, Sch. 2
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, Prohibition on Interception and Civil RemediesTelecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth), ss. 6, 7, 105, 107A-107C
Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017 (Cth), ss. 5, 8-15

What this page claims, and what it does not

The stages are LexLint's own vocabulary. Four of the five boxes are the binding classes the /law/<jurisdiction> docket already draws (In force, Enacted but not yet in force, Proposed, and Repealed, withdrawn or blocked), so a square here and a square there mean the same thing. A struck-down instrument is spent on both readings.

Enjoined has its own box. Inside "Repealed, withdrawn or blocked" it would sit beside a mark that is a false description of a law a court has paused, and it would pool away a count that reads as a signal: how contested a jurisdictional hook is. The certainty ladder files enjoined as present law and the docket draws it spent; splitting it out here makes that disagreement the reader's choice instead of our silent one. It is off by default, which follows the docket.

One date column, and where a bare date would mislead it says what kind of date it is. "In force from" is commencement: the earlier of a published commencement event and the instrument's own effective date, the same choice lifecycle_band() makes and for the same reason, neither source is reliably the commencement, and the earlier one cannot make a law look newer than it is. A bracket qualifies the date where a bare one would mislead ([future] for a start date still ahead, [proposed] for a bill with no commencement to show, [enjoined], [struck down], [repealed], [superseded] or [withdrawn] for a spent instrument). Nothing is inferred from our own review date: a row with neither a date nor a status to explain the gap says "not recorded" instead.

The map is the table. Its fill is the count of instruments at the stages you chose, binned on the same RAMP_BINS edges /law/map uses, and it redraws on every change. Point at, click, or tab to a place for what applies there, every stage it holds shown even when your filter is excluding it.

Three ways of showing nothing, and they are different claims. A place washed pale holds communications law your filter is excluding, so widening the filter brings it back. A hatched place is one we track and hold no communications law for at all: that is a statement about our research, not about the law. A white place has no jurisdiction record for this topic at all. Only the first of the three moves when you change the filter; the other two are facts about us and hold still.

Nothing here needs the script. The default resultset is in the HTML: counts, tally, map fills and the hidden rows are all rendered at build. The script recomputes them when a box changes and does nothing else, which is what lets this page ship under script-src 'self' and be read whole by a crawler.

Every instrument here links its own note page, which carries the primary source and the date it was read. This is a research index, not legal advice.