Article 13, of Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector on unsolicited communication has been transposed in Maltese law by Legal Notice 16 of 2003  under the Data Protection Act (CAP. 440 of the Law of Malta). The law empowers the Data Protection Commissioner to handle any complaints concerning unsolicited communications and to take the remedial actions as he deems necessary.On a local level, in 2004 Government has launched a Green Paper on Spam which outlines the issues related to the problem of Spam and proposes a number of actions which can be implemented to combat Spam. A National Information Society Advisory Council (NISCO) was also set up chaired by the Minister of Investment, Industry and Information Technology to ensure a structured consultative mechanism of key information society policy areas. A sub-committee of NISCO and the general public were invited to submit their views on the Green Paper to the Ministry. Based on the Communication on unsolicited commercial communications or 'spam' (COM (2004) 28), the list of recommendations consisting of legislative, technical and awareness measures have now been completed and all stakeholders have been informed of their responsibility to act upon the recommended initiatives.