More funding being allocated to scam protection

To bolster protection for Australians against scammers, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is establishing a National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC).

The ACCC has highlighted a $58 million allocation towards this initiative in this year’s federal budget. NASC is set to launch on 1 July, with ongoing work being added to the project over the next three years.

“We’ll be using this funding to build the technology needed to support high frequency data sharing with a range of agencies, law enforcement and the private sector, with the mission to make Australia a harder target for scammers,” said ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe.

Of the $58 million granted, $44 million will go towards a technology build. ACCC said this would enable them to:

• Receive a report of a scam from any institution (private or government) and centralise this intelligence.
• Distribute data to those who need it most — such as banks to freeze an account, telcos to block a call, and digital platforms to take down a website or account.
• Analyse and act on the trends sourced from this data to disrupt scams and educate Australians.

“The remaining funding of $14 million will be used to resource the NASC to deliver fusion cells; provide education and communications activities in collaboration with the private sector and support the ongoing data analysis; intelligence gathering, and disruption,” said ACCC.

Ms Lowe continued: “The centre will bring together the expertise and resources to disrupt scammers making contact with Australians, raise consumer awareness about how to avoid scams, and link scam victims to services where they have lost money or had their identity compromised.”

“Through increased sharing of scam reports and other initiatives, the centre will help inform finance, telecommunications and digital platforms sectors to take more timely and effective steps to stop scammers.”

“This additional level of coordination and focus will help target anti-scam activities and help prevent losses to scams,” she said.

According to ACCC, text messages became the most common form of scam in 2022, with almost 80,000 reports to the consumer watchdog. In response to this, the government is planning to introduce an SMS sender ID register.

Ms Lowe said that the new register would “assist in disrupting impersonation scams and help consumers determine whether a text message using a sender ID is from a trusted source”.

“While these are all positive steps in the fight against scams, we also believe the work of the NASC would be greatly assisted by the establishment of effective cross-industry standards with coverage and teeth to ensure scammers can’t exploit weak links,” Ms Lowe explained.

“We have received strong feedback that increased coordination of anti-scam efforts across government, the finance and telecommunications sectors and digital platforms would make a significant impact on the fight against scams. This will be the NASC’s focus.”

This news coincides with the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia’s (COSBOA) work on the Cyber Wardens program, which got a $23.4 million budget boost to assist its mission of protecting small businesses from digital scams.

These initiatives are timely, as the ACCC recently reported that $3.1 billion was lost to scams last year.