A bstract The integrated and differential cross sections for the production of pairs of isolated photons is measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. A data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 pb −1 is analysed. A next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculation is compared to the measurements. A discrepancy is observed for regions of the phase space where the two photons have an azimuthal angle difference $ \Delta \varphi \lesssim 2.8 $ rad.