Mandatory SMS Sender ID Register, youth social media ban with large fines for Big Tech coming up for Australia

After a trial with telcos and major brands starting in December last year, the Australian government now says it intends to make the SMS Sender ID Register mandatory, with A$10 million funding over four years.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland will direct the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to develop an industry standard for the purpose. This will require telcos to check whether messages sent under a brand name correspond to the legitimate registered sender.

If not, the ACMA will block the SMS text, or include a warning.

Rowland said SMS is the most commonly reported scam delivery method, and Australia allows texts with brand or organisation names in the sender field.

New Zealand doesn't allow that, Paul Brislen, the chief executive of the Telecommunications Forum lobby group and industry association, said.

"We use SMS short codes which bypasses that problem," Brislen added.

The move is part of what Rowland said is the Albanese government's suite of measures to make Australia the toughest target in the world for scammers, and to bring losses by victims down.

She added that Australia has invested over A$168 million in preventative measures, such as establishing a National Anti-Scam Centre, a Scams Prevention Framework with "world-leading obligations on banks, telcos and social media companies to prevent, detect, report, disrupt and respond to scams."

The move comes just a few days after the Australian government went ahead and banned social media access for under-16s - somehow, as the technology for to do so is yet to be developed. Breaching the ban would lead to A$50 million fines for TikTok, Snapchat, Meta/Facebook, Twitter-X, Reddit and Instagram. Said fines would be for systematic breaches however, and not single cases.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has given its regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), some real teeth to enforce Meta's "celeb-bait" scam ads reduction efforts with factual recognition technology among other measures.

Failure to ensure compliance will be penalised with up to A$50 million fines for Meta. New Zealand does not have any such penalty regime in place.

It doesn't stop there though: the Labor government is looking at introducing new laws aimed at anti-competitive practices by big technology companies, similar to the European Union Digital Markets Act regulation.

Stephen Jones, the assistant treasurer, said the digital economy challenges Australia's current legal framework. Digital platforms can charge higher costs, reduce choice and use sneaky tactics to lock consumers into using certain products.

"Innovation outside of the established players becomes almost impossible," Jones said at a recent event in Sydney.

The Australian government will investigate app marketplaces and ad tech services, and prioritise these for service-specific obligations.

Again, the proposed fines are up to A$50 million.

ACMA and Britain's Office of Communications (Ofcom) have also set up a framework for practical cooperation between the two regulators. This is to enforce laws and assist each other around unlawful communications, and the framework looks quite wide-ranging.