The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has today released its 2024-25 compliance priorities, which include a strong focus on consumer protections in the telco sector.
ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin said that telcos are front and centre of this year's compliance priorities, given the increasingly essential nature of their services.
"We will be actively monitoring whether the industry is complying with the new Financial Hardship Standard, which came into force in March 2024. These new rules mean telcos need to do more to help people struggling to pay their internet and phone bills," Ms O'Loughlin said.
"We will also be undertaking an intelligence-gathering audit focusing on telco rules intended to help Australians experiencing family and domestic violence to stay safe and connected.
"After recent outages affecting the ability of callers to get through to the life-saving Triple Zero service, we will be looking closely at carriers' compliance with rules that require them to make sure calls are successfully connected.
"We will also work with the telco industry as it reviews its own consumer-facing code of practice to make sure they deliver better services and outcomes for consumers, especially those in vulnerable circumstances," Ms O'Loughlin said.
The ACMA will continue to prioritise work with telcos on scam prevention, with a focus on disrupting scam networks that impersonate messages from legitimate businesses and services.
"Scam texts are the highest reported way these criminal syndicates attempt to dupe people out of their money and personal information.
"While we have seen a reduction in financial losses from scams in recent times, it is vital that we continue with the concerted effort from industry, government and regulators to put these scammers out of business," Ms O'Loughlin said.
The full list of the 2024-25 ACMA annual compliance priorities is:
- Protecting telco customers experiencing financial hardship by monitoring industry compliance with the Financial Hardship Standard, including how financial hardship arrangements are being managed.
- Supporting telco customers experiencing domestic and family violence by monitoring how telcos are assisting these customers to stay safe and stay connected.
- Safeguarding Triple Zero emergency call services through carrier compliance with their obligations to ensure that calls are successfully connected to emergency services.
- Tackling the online supply of dodgy devices by working with advertisers, retailers and consumers to stop non-compliant electronic equipment coming into Australia.
- Continuing our focus on interactive gambling safeguards by taking action against illegal offshore wagering providers, promoting consumer awareness of BetStop - the National Self-Exclusion RegisterTM, and monitoring industry compliance with the ban on the use of credit for online betting.
- Combating misinformation and disinformation on online platforms by overseeing digital platforms' efforts under the voluntary code.
- Disrupting SMS impersonation scams by enforcing telco obligations to trace, block and report scam messages, and by continuing the development of the SMS sender ID register.
- Targeting misleading spam messages by enforcing spam rules to stop commercial messages being misleadingly sent as service or non-commercial messages.
The ACMA has settled three enduring compliance priorities that reflect its long-term focus on matters of significant and ongoing harm to the Australian community:
- protecting vulnerable telco customers
- minimising gambling harms
- combating spam and telco scams.
The ACMA's compliance priorities were informed by submissions made through a public consultation process. More details on the 2024-25 compliance priorities are available on the ACMA website.
The ACMA has also released its Outcomes: compliance priorities 2023-24 report, which sets out the ACMA's actions and outcomes against its priorities for the last year.
"This report shows the work the ACMA has taken to hold industry to account over the last 12 months to deliver for consumers," Ms O'Loughlin said.
