Protecting telco customers experiencing financial hardship
Finding it hard to pay bills can happen to anyone at any time, and for many reasons. As telecommunications services are central to everyday living, it’s crucial customers are supported to keep their services connected.
In 2023–24, we strengthened the rules that telcos need to follow for customers experiencing financial hardship by making the Telecommunications (Financial Hardship) Industry Standard 2024.
This year we will focus on how telcos are complying with their obligations under the new Standard, including monitoring how financial hardship arrangements are offered, credit management actions are handled, and record-keeping rules are followed.
Supporting telco customers experiencing domestic and family violence
For Australians experiencing domestic and family violence, access to telco services can be a lifeline. The role the telco industry plays in helping these customers – a significant proportion of the population – to stay connected and be able to access essential services and support is especially important.
In 2023–24, we made it a compliance priority to assess how telcos help customers experiencing domestic and family violence. This year, we will expand this work with an intelligence-gathering audit focusing on telco rules to keep DFV customers connected. We will also undertake consumer and industry education to raise awareness of the support available.
Continuing our focus on interactive gambling safeguards
The social, financial, and health-related impacts and harms that can arise from gambling are significant. We have no appetite for non-compliance with gambling safeguards, which is reflected in our continued focus. In 2024–25, we will:
- educate consumers about, and enforce industry compliance with, new credit card and crypto bans
- keep raising awareness of BetStop – the National Self-Exclusion Register™ and enforce industry compliance so that people who choose to stop gambling are not provided wagering services or exposed to marketing of these services.
- explore new tools and approaches to disrupt illegal gambling services provided to Australians.
Disrupting SMS impersonation scams
SMS impersonation scams perpetrated by criminal syndicates have severe financial and social impacts on Australians.
We will work to disrupt the distribution and impact of these scams by enforcing rules that telcos need to follow to identify and prevent SMS scams, and sharing intelligence with fellow regulators in Australia and internationally. We will continue to develop the SMS Sender ID Register, which aims to stop Australians from receiving ‘impersonation’ scams by protecting the alphanumeric sender IDs (alpha tags) of legitimate brands, businesses, and government services from being hijacked by scammers.
Targeting misleading spam messages
The direct harms from spam – unlawful electronic marketing – include intrusion on privacy, loss of agency over personal data, unlawful competitive advantage to businesses, loss of time and productivity, and anxiety, frustration and confusion.
Our priority is to enforce spam rules to stop commercial messages being misleadingly sent as ‘service’ or non-commercial messages. This especially applies to messages from businesses where there may be a high risk of harm to consumers, like interactive wagering or financial services.
We will also focus on compliance in the online retail sector by educating businesses about spam rules and taking formal action where serious and systemic matters are found.
Tackling the online supply of dodgy devices
Radiocommunications devices that do not comply with Australian rules and safety standards may cause interference to communications, GPS and emergency services, which can put Australians at risk. We continue to see complaints about non-compliant radiocommunications devices advertised or bought online.
Building on last year’s work, we will use a 3-pronged approach to tackle supply of these devices – work with online platforms to proactively remove ads for non-compliant devices, develop a voluntary pledge with eCommerce platforms to better protect Australian consumers buying online, and educate Australians about the risks of buying these devices online.
Combating misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms
Misinformation can pose a risk to the health and safety of individuals, as well as society more generally. When it is spread deliberately (disinformation), it causes confusion, undermines trust in governments and institutions, and can contribute to financial harm for Australians.
In 2024–25, we will continue to oversee the performance of digital platforms under the voluntary Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation. We are also working with the Australian Government to develop and strengthen our regulatory powers and, if new legislation is introduced, we will move to focus on implementation and addressing digital platforms’ compliance with the legislation.
Safeguarding Triple Zero emergency call services
When a telecommunications network outage occurs, it can significantly affect emergency services, public safety and vulnerable people.
In 2024–25, we will focus on the compliance of carriers, carriage service providers and Emergency Call Persons so that calls are successfully carried to emergency services. We will implement the tasks that fall to us within the Australian Government’s response to the recommendations of the Bean Report into the Optus outage, including reviewing the regulatory arrangements in the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2019 and establishing new regulatory arrangements that mandate clear communications to Australians during network outages.
Read about our previous compliance priorities.