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Richard Thomas, who is due to retire in June after seven years in the post, was speaking at the DMA's Annual Data Protection Conference this morning.

Asked if he was, in his remaining time in office, planning a move towards an opt-in regime for offline communications as pressure mounts from other European countries, Thomas replied "no".

He added that "it could be difficult territory" as other European countries tighten their privacy regimes and because of a record number of Data Protection Act breaches in the UK since 2007. "We're way ahead of our colleagues in dealing with 401 breaches [of the Data Protection Act]," he said.

He also reiterated his support for banning the use of the edited Electoral Roll for marketing purposes "though I realise this is not a popular stance [to have] in this room".

Thomas proposed an end to the sale of the edited ER in the Data Sharing Review published in July 2008 and repeated these objections this morning.

"Information collected for the Electoral Roll is vital for democratic purposes and we reached the conclusion that the sale for any purpose sends a poor message in the context of data sharing and that it deters [ER] registration in the first place," Thomas told the conference.

"We felt it is not acceptable in the modern age and it's for Government to decide whether to proceed with that recommendation."