The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has unveiled its compliance priorities for 2024-25, with a strong focus on consumer protections in the telecommunications sector.

ACMA will actively monitor the industry's compliance with the new Financial Hardship Standard, which came into effect in March 2024. "We will be actively monitoring whether the industry is complying with the new Financial Hardship Standard, which came into force in March 2024. These new rules mean telcos need to do more to help people struggling to pay their internet and phone bills," said ACMA Chair, Nerida O’Loughlin.

In addition to this, ACMA will conduct an intelligence-gathering audit centred on telco rules designed to assist Australians experiencing family and domestic violence.

The authority will also scrutinise carriers' compliance with rules that ensure calls are successfully connected to the Triple Zero service, following recent outages.

ACMA plans to collaborate with the telco industry as it reviews its consumer-facing code of practice, with the aim of improving services and outcomes for consumers, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances.

Scam prevention is another key area of focus for ACMA. The authority will concentrate on disrupting scam networks that impersonate messages from legitimate businesses and services. "Scam texts are the highest reported way these criminal syndicates attempt to dupe people out of their money and personal information. While we have seen a reduction in financial losses from scams in recent times, it is vital that we continue with the concerted effort from industry, government and regulators to put these scammers out of business," O’Loughlin emphasised.

The full list of ACMA's 2024-25 annual compliance priorities includes protecting telco customers experiencing financial hardship, supporting telco customers experiencing domestic and family violence, safeguarding Triple Zero emergency call services, tackling the online supply of dodgy devices, focusing on interactive gambling safeguards, combating misinformation and disinformation on online platforms, disrupting SMS impersonation scams, and targeting misleading spam messages.

"This report shows the work the ACMA has taken to hold industry to account over the last 12 months to deliver for consumers," O’Loughlin said.