Stephen Jones (Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Financial Services)
The federal government is to set aside over $10 million for the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to establish an SMS sender ID registry in the upcoming 2023-24 Budget.
Set to be introduced via phases before rolling out industry-wide, the aim of the registry is to disrupt text messaging scams by stopping the imitation of key industry or government brand names.
In a hypothetical example, the government said the registry would allow AusPost to register its sender ID, with telcos then blocking illegitimate incoming messages that also try to use that sender ID.
The registry, according to the federal government, complement rules for telecommunications companies set up by ACMA in July 2022 to identify, trace and block SMS scams that have stopped over 90 million scam texts in the six months to December 2022.
The government also said it pairs well with its plans to launch a National Anti-Scam Centre as part of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which was announced in November 2022.
“Every day, scammers are ripping money out of the pockets of hard-working Australians. The government is fighting back. With the establishment [of the] National Anti-Scams Centre and initiatives like [the] SMS sender ID registry, we are driving home a clear message; the government is putting scammers on notice,” said Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones.
“We know text messages have topped phones calls as a scammer's tool of choice. The registry will not only make it tougher for scammers to imitate trusted brands through SMS; it will be crucial in disrupting a key channel scammers use to target victims".
Industry peak body Communications Alliance welcomed the announcement but claimed that consultation needs to be taken with industry and other stakeholders “to ensure that the resulting framework is effective and practicable”, with a preference for a mandatory framework, rather than voluntary.
“Telcos are already pursuing and blocking scam-SMS under the enforceable industry code developed by Comms Alliance members,” said Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton.
“A sender SMS ID registry – if executed well – can be a valuable addition to the armoury available to combat the increasingly sophisticated scourge of scam SMS.”
The proposal for the SMS ID registry comes a week after the ACCC’s Scamwatch division released its latest Targeting Scams report, which saw total financial losses reported rising by 76 per cent year-on-year, to $569 million in 2022.
Meanwhile, total financial losses reported to all scam-related organisations for that year hit a record $3.1 billion.
