ACMA says 39,562 sender IDs were registered before SMS register launch
ACMA reports that 27,361 entities had signed up 39,562 sender IDs by 30 June, before the register began on 1 July 2026 and messages from unregistered senders started carrying an "Unverified" label. Its April to June report also covers scam blocking, a $3.96 million Spam Act penalty and mobile-number fraud action.
Some 27,361 entities had put 39,562 sender IDs on the SMS Sender ID Register by 30 June, the Australian Communications and Media Authority said, ahead of the register's start on 1 July 2026. The regulator added that 400 telcos had been approved to take part. Under the scheme, messages from senders that have not registered an ID appear as "Unverified" inside a single message thread on a recipient's phone. The numbers come from ACMA's quarterly report on its scam, spam and telemarketing work for April to June 2026.
ACMA said it expanded outreach and onboarding help for businesses, government bodies and telcos over the quarter. The register sits within the government's Fighting Scams initiative, and ACMA says it helps curb impersonation scams and lets people trust branded SMS and MMS messages more readily.
ACMA reported that telcos blocked more than 176.9 million scam calls and more than 55.1 million scam texts between April and June. Telcos have told the regulator they have blocked over 4.2 billion scams since the relevant rules began, including more than 3.1 billion calls since December 2020 and over 1.1 billion texts since July 2022.
On spam, Latitude Finance Australia paid a $3.96 million penalty after ACMA found more than 2.7 million breaches of the Spam Act. More than 2.3 million of the messages carried inaccurate contact details, and 344,416 of those also had no working unsubscribe option. ACMA accepted enforceable undertakings from the company.
The report also sets out ACMA's position on consent, noting that some businesses had added people to marketing lists after one-off purchases or enquiries. The regulator said this points to a misunderstanding of the Spam Act 2003, and that consent generally cannot be inferred from a single purchase or enquiry, or when an unrelated product is marketed, such as a telco promoting an energy product. ACMA described express consent, whether by form, website checkbox, phone call or face-to-face, as the clearer route, and said businesses need records showing when and how consent was obtained, including for purchased lists.
Disrupting mobile number fraud was one of ACMA's two main compliance priorities for 2025–26. SpinTel paid $59,400 after ACMA said it breached identity verification requirements 10 times between 18 February and 17 March 2025, weaknesses the regulator said let scammers get one-time codes and take over consumers' mobile services. ACMA also accepted an enforceable undertaking from SpinTel. Yomojo received a formal warning for not publishing website advice telling suspected porting-fraud victims to go to police.
Consumers lodged more than 5,400 complaints about alleged telemarketing and spam breaches in the quarter, with solar, insurance and real estate drawing the most. Across 2025–26, telemarketing complaints dropped to 13,682 from 16,537 a year earlier and SMS complaints to 1,971 from 2,160, while instant-messaging complaints rose to 90 from 49. The regulator issued 858 compliance alerts in the quarter and had seven investigations at enforcement stage. Over the 12 months, investigations took 3.5 months on average and all finished within six months, ACMA said.