Privacy Awareness Week (29 April – 5 May) is an annual event during which the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities join forces to remind everyone to take steps to protect their own privacy and safeguard personal information about others that they might hold.

“Privacy is recognised in many countries, including Australia, as a human right,” says Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim. “Serious consequences can arise when someone’s privacy is breached and we all have responsibilities to look after the personal information we handle.”

Read more: Privacy: it's all about you

ACCAN CEO Teresa Corbin told the CommsDay Conference in Melbourne that telcos should set their own targets for complaint reductions and be transparent with internal complaint data in order to build greater trust with consumers. Please download the full speech below.

Read more: ACCAN CEO speaks at CommsDay Melbourne Congress 2013

The ACCAN 2012 National Conference program includes an exciting innovation: a consumer-oriented Technology Expo.  ACCAN’s TEXPO is not the usual trade show, but a targeted, in-depth showcase of carefully selected technologies of interest to a broad range of consumers.

Read more: 'Texpo' to feature at ACCAN 2012 National Conference

Australian consumers must currently pay a monthly fee of $2.93 or more to make sure that their phone number won't be released by directory assistance or be made available in the White Pages. The fee effectively charges people for their privacy and is a particular problem for low-income consumers and victims of crime, harassment or violence. ACCAN's position is that the fee should be removed for all consumers.

Read more: Call for Silent Line submissions

Australia's peak blindness organisations have been working with the Australian Electoral Commission over the past several years to secure a fundamental human right for Australians who are blind or vision impaired – access to an independent, secret and verifiable ballot in the federal election.

Read more: Good news for Australian voters who are blind or vision impaired

We experienced problems with our website this morning (26/02/13). Our site should be back to normal, if you experience any problems please email info (at) accan.org.au

Cloud computing has the potential to transform the way individual consumers and small businesses store and use data, potentially saving time, money and effort. However, cloud computing involves risks for consumers that must be carefully managed.

Read more: What is cloud computing?

ACCAN and Telstra are delighted to announce the two-day
M-Enabling Australasia 2013 conference being held on 14th-15th August at Australian Technology Park, Sydney.

Read more: Save the date! M-Enabling Australasia 2013

The Australian Consumer Fraud Taskforce will launch National Consumer Fraud Week with a warning that scammers can target you anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

Scammers do not stop at anything to target victims, including adopting a personal touch. Watch out for scammers – whether you are answering a phone call, opening mail, online chatting with friends, shopping or even looking for love.

Read more: National Consumer Fraud Week focuses on consumer protection

Communications Compliance, a newly created industry monitoring body set up to monitor telco compliance with the new Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code, is seeking nominations or recommendations from consumer bodies for a consumer director to sit on its Board. 

Read more: Consumer representatives on Communications Compliance Board

Complaints from small businesses about their telecommunications services increased 52 per cent in the last financial year, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) reports in the latest issue of TIO Talks, published today.

More than 22,000 complaints were made in 2010-11 by small businesses unable to resolve issues with service providers. Complaints about inadequate or incorrect customer service advice, poor mobile phone coverage, broken promises and bill disputes were the most common issues.

Read more: Small businesses make more complaints to TIO

The Australian Communications and Media Authority doesn’t seem to understand the needs of consumers  Against the advice of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACMA has decided not to implement a default bar on subscription text message services. Instead, the ACMA has sided with industry in a soft-regulatory approach that is just what the revenue hungry and consumer indifferent telecoms companies want. It’s just another decision that casts doubt on whether the ACMA is actually up to the job of protecting consumers.

Read more: ACMA makes a bad call on Mobile Premium Service barring