Outcomes: compliance priorities 2023–24

Our focus

We said that we would focus on how telcos are complying with their obligations to support customers experiencing financial hardship, including by monitoring their direct debit and responsible selling practices.

What we did

• Made the Telecommunications (Financial Hardship) Industry Standard 2024.
• Audited 48 telcos to assess their compliance with the rules.
• Conducted investigations when we found non-compliance.
• Continued consumer education campaigns.

Key outcomes

In February 2024, we made the Telecommunications (Financial Hardship) Industry Standard 2024, which came into effect on 29 March 2024.

The new Standard improves safeguards for telco customers experiencing financial difficulties. It requires telcos to establish and promote their financial hardship policies, proactively identify customers experiencing financial hardship, provide a stronger range of support options and prioritise keeping customers connected to services. The new rules provide the ACMA with a range of graduated enforcement powers for telcos that breach their obligations, including issuing formal warnings, remedial directions or infringement notices involving financial penalties.  

We conducted compliance audits of 48 telcos to check they had updated their policy documents to meet the new requirements of the Standard. Following the audit, we found that 10 telcos had not complied with this obligation. In this instance, given the nature of the breaches and the action taken by the telcos to address the non-compliance, we issued formal warnings to all 10 telcos.

We published guidance for industry on the new Standard and continue to actively promote our consumer education campaign across digital and social media channels. The consumer campaign aims to raise awareness of telco financial hardship programs and associated consumer protections to help Australians maintain continued access to their telco services.

Our focus

We said that we would assess how telcos assist customers experiencing domestic and family violence and take action against telcos that don’t follow the rules.

What we did

• Gathered information from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) and industry.
• Conducted investigations informed by this information and referrals from consumer groups.

Key outcomes

We engaged with the TIO and community advocacy groups to understand the telco issues consumers affected by domestic and family violence faced in 2022–23.

Under the current Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) Code, telcos are required to make sure their sales representatives and public-facing staff can interact with disadvantaged or vulnerable customers appropriately. We currently have 3 investigations underway into potential non-compliance with the TCP Code in this area, which are also informing our understanding of these issues.

Our focus

We said that we would keep working to prevent SMS scams reaching Australians, by enforcing existing rules, collaborating with Australian and global partners, and exploring new ways to stop scam messages that impersonate legitimate brands or organisations.

What we did

• Audited telco compliance with the Scam Code.
• Conducted investigations when we found non-compliance.
• Engaged with industry on scam disruption issues.
• Established a pilot SMS Sender ID Register.

Key outcomes

We audited 41 telcos that send bulk SMS, as this activity is a potential key conduit of SMS scams to consumers. Many entities were non-compliant with rules that require telcos to ensure that the senders of bulk SMS have a legitimate need to use sender IDs, such as for shortened business names.

We took enforcement action following 12 investigations, giving 11 directions to comply, and issuing 1 formal warning. In 10 of the finalised investigations, we found evidence that scammers had exploited the non-compliance to send SMS brand impersonation scams to Australians.

We engaged with telcos on a range of scam disruption issues, including providing de-identified complaint data to facilitate identification and blocking of scams, monitoring telcos’ efforts to trace the origins of scam traffic, sharing intelligence reports about current and emerging scam threats, and supporting the introduction by key telcos of AI or machine learning to automate and enhance identification and disruption of scams.

Since the registration and enforcement of new rules to identify and block scam text messages in July 2022, telcos have reported blocking over 533 million scam messages to 31 March 2024. We began an SMS Sender ID Register pilot in December 2023. The Register protects alphanumeric sender IDs (often shortened business names) of registered brands and government agencies from impersonation by scammers.

Our focus

We said that we would concentrate on businesses that don’t action opt-out requests for e-marketing, especially for products and services that may cause significant harm, like direct marketing of gambling, alcohol and ‘buy now, pay later’ offers.

What we did

• Conducted investigations and took strong enforcement action.
• Engaged with industry about compliance obligations.

Key outcomes

We finalised 5 investigations into entities that appeared to be breaking SMS and email unsubscribe rules. Our enforcement actions included issuing more than $8.5 million in infringement notices and accepting 6 court-enforceable undertakings, including from large, established organisations for not providing an unsubscribe facility that complied with spam laws.

In the period to June 2024, we sent compliance alerts and tailored information to 2,497 businesses identified as potentially breaching the unsubscribe rules, reminding them of their obligations and the penalties for non-compliance.

Our focus

We said that we would focus on supporting Australians to access and benefit from protections designed to help those at risk of, or who are experiencing, gambling harm.

What we did

• Took action against illegal offshore wagering providers targeting Australians (particularly during the FIFA Women’s World Cup).
• Monitored and enforced compliance with the gambling advertising rules.
• Supported Australians to self-exclude from online wagering through BetStop – the National Self-Exclusion Register™.

Key outcomes

In the lead-up to and during the FIFA Women’s World Cup, we reviewed 202 interactive gambling websites that were identified by monitoring wagering services and news articles. We investigated 21 services that appeared to be providing unlicensed wagering services to Australians and found 18 to be in breach of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. Following notification of the ACMA’s findings, 3 of those services withdrew from the Australian market, while the remaining 15 services had their websites blocked by internet service providers at our request.

We monitored compliance with the gambling advertising rules during major live sporting events, including the 2023 AFL and NRL grand finals, the 2024 Australian Open, the 2024 Super Bowl and the 2024 Formula One, Australian Grand Prix. From this, we undertook 13 investigations, of which 8 have been finalised. Our enforcement actions included issuing a remedial direction to one provider requiring it to arrange for an external audit of its systems, processes and practices relating to compliance with the gambling advertising rules.

BetStop – the National Self-Exclusion Register™ launched in August 2023. This important consumer safeguard has, since its inception to May 2024, allowed around 24,300 Australians to self-exclude from all licensed online and phone wagering providers in a simple process. We have undertaken a communications campaign across social media, website ads, and signage in pubs and clubs to raise awareness of the new service among the target audience. We have also worked with state and territory authorities and other stakeholders, such as gambling help providers, to increase awareness. 

We have been monitoring industry compliance with their BetStop obligations and carefully considering any consumer complaints that have been referred to us by the Register operator. Our compliance activities have included issuing 3 compliance guidance bulletins to the industry, engaging with industry on consumer complaints and formally investigating wagering providers. We have a range of graduated enforcement powers to use if non-compliance is found.

Our focus

We said that we would focus on supplier compliance with equipment rules, work with online platforms to proactively remove ads for non-compliant devices and educate Australians about the risks of buying non-compliant devices online.

What we did

• Conducted audits of online platforms.
• Engaged with online platforms and suppliers to remove advertisements for non-compliant devices.
• Educated consumers and suppliers about the problems with buying non-compliant devices and raised awareness of the rules.
• Conducted consumer research.

Key outcomes

We conducted an audit of 8 selected online platforms and identified over 2,200 advertisements for non-compliant devices. All of these were removed by the platforms at the ACMA’s request. 

We ran an advertising campaign across online selling platforms from November 2023 to June 2024 to educate and inform consumers about the dangers of non-compliant devices. 

We conducted research on purchasers of non-compliant devices to inform our compliance and education programs. We will publish a report of our findings in the latter half of 2024.

View our report.

Our focus

We said that we would extend our electromagnetic energy (EME) measurement program to millimetre wave (mmWave) technologies and also assess EME in buildings.

What we did

• Conducted EME measurements of mmWave technologies at mobile base stations.
• Measured EME in a range of buildings.

Key outcomes

For all of the 90 mobile phone base station sites visited nationally, and in all measurement categories, we observed very low levels of EME exposure. The EME levels were well below the public exposure limits set by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).

Our mmWave beamforming EME measurements determined that the maximum EME from 5G mmWave deployments was 0.11% of the ARPANSA standard limit.

Our comparisons between the 2 beamforming technologies, 5G mmWave and 5G mid-band, determined that in all cases, emissions from mmWave deployments were less than emissions from mid-band deployments. 

In 81% of cases, the EME measured from mmWave deployments was more than 10 times less than EME measured from mid-band deployments.

Measurements taken at 18 in-building locations around Melbourne determined that the highest level of average EME measured over a 30-minute exposure period was 0.48% of the ARPANSA standard limit, or more than 200 times below that limit. 

View our report.

Our focus

We said that we would audit Low Power Open Narrowcasting (LPON) licensees and take action if we find non-compliance with licensing conditions.

What we did

• Gathered information on the scope of the non-compliance. 
• Audited licensees’ compliance with the LPON licence conditions.

Key outcomes

We conducted audits to assess whether the levels of non-compliance we found in 2022–23, where over 98% of licensees were non-compliant, is representative of the wider LPON community. 

A desktop and field audit of a random sample of LPON licensees was conducted from October 2023 to April 2024. We completed 142 desktop audits and 57 field audits and will publish our findings and updated guidance information for licensees later in 2024.

View our report.