Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

It's a sad fact that, for many Australians, when a text message comes in, it's not a message from a friend or a family member. Instead, it can often be a scam. Common SMS scams include fake order deliveries, refund scams, scams that suggest you've won a prize, scams that say there's an issue with your payments, impersonation of government websites and impersonation of well-known businesses such as Coles or Linkt.

This bill, the Telecommunications Amendment (SMS Sender ID Register) Bill 2024, is an important step in the Albanese government's multipronged approach to combating SMS scams. It complements rules registered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority which have seen over half a billion scam texts stopped between the middle of 2022 and March this year. The register also complements the Albanese government's establishment of the National Anti-Scam Centre as a world-leading public and private sector partnership to disrupt and stop scam activities and the introduction of a scams code framework that requires telcos, banks and digital platforms to prevent, detect and disrupt scams.

The scams targeted by this bill—the fake text messages—are sent using a sender identification system which makes it look like a well-known company or brand. That can make it more likely that recipients of those text messages are deceived and more likely that they lose money as a result of this insidious scam activity.

The SMS sender ID register bill will require the Australian Communications and Media Authority to establish and maintain a register of legitimate sender IDs and engage a contracted provider to partially or wholly maintain the register. The bill allows for a voluntary or a mandatory register. An industry standard for telecommunications providers who manage SMS traffic will also be made by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The standard will require telecommunications providers who manage SMS traffic to check SMSs that use sender IDs to ascertain whether a sender is on the register and whether the sender is the registered party. If not, the telco could be required to block the SMS or tag it as fraudulent. Once it's fully established, legitimate businesses will be able to have their sender IDs placed on the register, which will decrease the frequency and impact of SMS impersonation scams and ensure better protections for legitimate brands. One of the problems of scams is that Australians are increasingly ignoring text messages from businesses, some of which are legitimate, for fear that they're receiving a scam message. This register will boost public confidence in text message as a communications channel.

The Albanese government knows that this isn't the only piece of tackling SMS impersonation scams. We know scammers will change tactics. We know they'll use new methods to contact and ensnare would-be victims. That's why the bill has inbuilt protections to allow the Minister for Communications to make determinations by way of legislative instruments which respond to a changing scam landscape. That might include future communications services other than SMS and MMS which might use sender identifications in the future; it might include a thing other than letters, numbers and symbols that might be included in sender identifications in the future; and it might include relevant additional information to accepted sender identifications that should be kept on the register in the future. This bill allows the ACMA to make determinations, by legislative instrument, setting out further requirements for access to the register.

We understand that scammers are using technology very rapidly and that artificial intelligence is allowing pernicious tailored scams which will specifically target vulnerable people, sometimes using personal information about them straight from the web. Allowing the legislation and the register to keep up with this sort of pernicious activity will be critical.

The Albanese government has committed $67 million over four years, starting from 2024-25, to combat scams. That supports measures such as the introduction of mandatory industry codes; the Australian Communications and Media Authority's work in enforcing compliance with the telecommunications industry's anti-scam code; and a campaign by the National Anti-Scam Centre as to how people can identify scams and protect themselves from scams. That's in addition to the $86 million over four years provided in last year's budget, which included funding to establish the National Anti-Scam Centre.

Telecommunications providers need to do more. I was troubled to speak to somebody from a major telecommunications provider recently who said that the reason that you will sometimes receive more scam text messages at night-time is that their people aren't working 24 hours. That needs to change. If these carriers are serious about disrupting scams, they need to be as vigilant against scam messages sent at 12 am as they are against messages sent at 12 pm.

We are doing a lot to block scam attempts, with some 1.9 billion scam calls and 533 million scam texts blocked up to the end of March 2024. I commend Ministers Rowland and Jones for the work that they're doing on this. The Albanese government understands that this pernicious criminal behaviour is costing Australians time and money, and we are doing all we can in order to put an end to scams in our community.

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