The government will commit $10 million to establishing a register to track illegal messages after a report released last week showed the nation lost an estimated $3.1 billion to scam attacks in the past year.
The government will allocate $10 million in the upcoming Budget to establish a new text registry as part of an urgent crackdown on scam messages.
Announcing the move on Sunday, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the move was part of the Albanese government’s suite of policies attempting to reduce the impact of scams through the National Anti-Scams Centre.
It comes after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released a report last year showing an alarming increase in the number of scams targeting Australians.
At least half of Australia’s 25.7 million population received a fake text message at one point during the last year, with a massive $3.1 billion estimated to have been lost to criminals – an 80 per cent increase from 2021.
Ms Rowland told the ABC she viewed scams as a “whole-of-government” problem and vowed she would do more to help everyday Australians.
“I want to assure all of your viewers that this is perceived and certainly is being approached by the Albanese Government as a whole-of-government issue,” she said.
“We have the AFP, we have the telco sector, and we also ensure that we’ve got the most relevant discussions happening with banking institutions as well.
“So, we’re bringing all these together in our National Anti-Scams Centre. But in the meantime, we are taking some very practical steps, including this investment in the SMS Sender ID Registry.
“So, all of these, I think, will come together to hopefully make a measurable difference for Australians.”
She added that 90 million scams had already been blocked as a result of the government’s existing policies.
Most scams aim to impersonate major brands, government agencies or banks in the hope of convincing victims to hand over sensitive information or extort money.
Speaking to Weekend Today, Ms Rowland explained how the new registry would aim to tackle such impersonation, using a common fake delivery text as an example.
“To give a practical example like Australia Post, a lot of people might get texts from Australia Post and it says it is from Australia Post and says a delivery is coming,” she said.
“What scammers are currently able to do is copy that header using a different originating number and slip it into that legitimate stream so it is totally insidious but it looks completely legitimate.
“The registry will actually have a list of numbers that Australia Post says are their legitimate numbers. If a scammer tries to use a different number, the telco will block that from getting on to someone’s device.”
Ms Rowland said the government hopes to have the registry set up and running within 12 months.