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ACCAN recently made a submission to the eSafety consultation on the Draft Restricted Access System Declaration 2021. The Declaration updates the 2014 Declaration to align with the changes in the Online Safety Act 2021. ACCAN broadly supports the Draft Declaration. However, we did reiterate our concerns that aspects of the enforcement mechanisms are unlikely to result in the intended outcome of greater community protection.

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ACCAN recently made a submission to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications consultation on the Online Safety (Basic Online Safety Expectations) Determination 2021 exposure draft. The consultation provided an opportunity to comment on the government’s expectations on how online services should pro-actively act to protect Australians from online harm and abuse.

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ACCAN recently made a submission to the eSafety Restricted Access System (RAS) consultation. The consultation sought feedback on how the new RAS can best balance both the policy objective of keeping children and young people safe online, while not placing unnecessary financial or administrative burden on industry.

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The ACCC sought views on proposed amendments to the Audit of Telecommunications Infrastructure Assets – Record Keeping Rules. The record keeping rules require carriers and carriage service providers to keep records on the location of their infrastructure and provide this information to the ACCC. ACCAN is supportive of the amendments to these rules which ensure that the information collected is kept up to date with industry developments and assists the ACCC in its regulatory functions.

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A young girl sitting on the floor, using an iPhone.

According to the eSafety Commissioner, 26% of kids and 75% of teens are using Facebook, and 24% of kids and 70% of teens are on Instagram. The stats are similar across various other social media sites and digital platforms, particularly as we’re seeing social media become the main form of communication for young people. 

With more and more children using social media as their main form of communication, it’s important to consider what parents can do to keep them safe online. 

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The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) has made a submission to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications in response to an issues paper regarding a new scheme for captioning on subscription (pay) television.

In our submission, ACCAN supported the proposal to simplify the current Pay-tv rules which are overly complicated and do not provide any clarity about which programs will be captioned.

 ACCAN strongly supports the current legislated mandate that subscription television providers caption 100 per cent of their programming by 1 July 2033., As such, we did not support the proposed averaging of caption targets nor the proposed freezing of annual captioning increases.

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Cover illustration: Concerned man looks at phone as hooded scammer steals money in the form of gift cards.

Many companies offer gift cards as a convenient way for customers to purchase apps, books, movies, and video games from app stores. But as convenient as gift cards are for consumers, they are just as attractive to scammers who present them as legitimate payment methods in sophisticated scam scenarios.

Don’t be misled by these scams. Gift cards can only be used at the company they were issued for, not as payments for other goods, services, bills, or fines. If anyone ever asks you to pay them for anything in gift cards, it’s a scam. You should never be asked to share your gift card codes with anyone.

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The Federal Government has sought feedback on changes to Telstra’s carrier licence conditions. The proposed changes would increase Telstra’s level of reporting in regard to voice services that sit outside of NBN’s fixed line footprint.

Consumers living outside NBN’s fixed line footprint are heavily reliant on voice services provided over Telstra’s network, so it is important that the reliability of the services is transparent. It’s also essential that there is visibility of Telstra’s performance in meeting its obligations under the Universal Service Obligation regime, and how well it is meeting the Customer Service Guarantee standard.

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NetThing 2021 Speech by ACCAN Acting CEO – Andrew Williams


- CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY –

Building trust is a slow process. One that takes time, ongoing effort, and maintenance.

Conversely, losing trust can happen in an instant. One bad call, one misstep, and years of cultivating trust can be in jeopardy.

According to the 2021 Edelman Australia Trust Barometer, social media companies are the least trusted of all industries, falling well behind telecommunications, and even financial services.

The 2021 report shows that technology companies were the only industry to lose trust from 2020-2021, rather than gain it from Australians.
As the consumer voice for communications consumers, these statistics are not shocking or surprising to ACCAN.

We engage with consumers and advocates daily who express concern about a wide range of issues from misinformation spreading online that impacts their communities, to cyber abuse, to being unaware of their rights when using digital platforms.

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ACCAN provided a response to the Federal Government’s consultation on the Grant Guidelines for the Regional Connectivity Program Round 2. The program aims to use a place-based approach to telecommunications infrastructure investment that will respond to local priorities and maximise economic opportunities and social benefits for regional communities and businesses.

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An image of a home office set up, along with a desktop computer, a laptop and a mouse. Working from home has become an environment that many of us have become familiar with recently. However, home offices often aren’t set up as effectively as usual places of work. This means you may
not be able to guarantee access to the internet all the time, or that you may not have the speeds you need to work efficiently. Below are some steps you can take to ensure that you have the best possible working from home set up.

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Someone is scrolling through photos on an Apple iPhone, placed on a table next to a cup of coffee

The rapid evolution of technology has meant that mobile phones aren’t just used to make calls anymore. The addition of features like cameras, digital wallets and high-resolution screen displays means that we can use our devices for so much more than just calling and texting.

It’s always exciting when we get to see what new features are being incorporated into the latest mobile devices. However, you don’t necessarily need to buy a new mobile phone every time a new product is released.

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