Protecting vulnerable telecommunications customers, including people experiencing family violence, is one of the key priorities of the nation’s media watchdog.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority’s 2023/24 compliance priorities also include looking after customers in financial hardship and cracking down on illegal offshore betting sites.
It is doubling down on efforts to combat scam texts by enforcing existing rules and exploring new ways to stop the messages impersonating legitimate brands.
ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said the watchdog had a role to play protecting vulnerable customers.
“With many Australian families facing cost of living pressures it is particularly important for telcos to do more to support their most vulnerable customers,” she said.
“Telecommunications is clearly an essential service, with Australians relying on connectivity to access work, education, health, government services and more … without reliable phone and internet it is incredibly challenging for people to fully participate in today’s society.”
Ms O’Loughlin said tackling scams run by sophisticated international criminal networks was also a priority.
“Over the next 12 months the ACMA will work with government and industry to further reduce the risk of harm caused by scams by targeting them at their source, before they hit people’s phones,” she said.
The watchdog will also prioritise e-marketing unsubscribe rules for business not acting on opt-out requests, primarily on high-risk harm areas such as gambling, alcohol and buy now, pay later services.
The efforts to shut down illegal offshore bookmakers will have a particular focus on the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Reflecting on its previous batch of priorities, ACMA found significant results from newly-implemented codes.
“Our registration and enforcement of telco industry codes has seen more than 360 million scam calls and around 172 million scam messages blocked since July 2022,” Ms O’Loughlin said.
“This means that since new rules were introduced in December 2020, more than 1.15 billion scam calls have been blocked from reaching Australians.”
Credit: Source link
