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The Australian government has announced it will put aside $86.5 million to establish a National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC).
The NASC will be run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and it is hoped to be up and running by July 2023. It will allow greater information sharing between government departments and law enforcement and work to actively target and disrupt scamming operations as they are happening.
The announcement, according to Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones, is about “taking the fight to the scammers”.
“It’s about ensuring that when reports are made, wherever they’re made, whether it’s to the National Anti-Scam Centre, whether it’s to ASIC or state or federal police organisations, or to a bank or telecommunications company, we are sharing the information so that the people who need to know that there are scammers out there in the field are able to act on it quickly,” Minister Jones said during a press event in Canberra today (15 May).
“As soon as money leaves a person’s bank account, it’s almost too late. So this is all about ensuring that we can knock the scams on the head before they get out there in the field.”
Jones said the NASC would also establish “fusion cells” of experts from a range of industries.
“We’re also going to set up fusion cells, which are like a hit squad, where we’re going after certain types of scams and taking the fight up to the scammers to ensure that they don’t get an even break,” he said.
“If we’re doing disruption activity, we need the capacity and the disruption and the intel the banks have, to work with law enforcement, to work with the ACCC and others to ensure that we can go after these scammers.”
Australians lost $3.1 billion to scammers in 2022, which was an increase of 80 per cent over 2021’s loss figures.
“Australians lost more money to scams than ever before in 2022, but the true cost of scams is much more than a dollar figure as they also cause emotional distress to victims, their families and businesses,” said ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe in April this year.
The ACCC ran a survey of stakeholders in December 2022 and January 2023, when the NASC was first proposed.
“As scammers become increasingly sophisticated in their tactics, it is clear a coordinated response across government, law enforcement, and the private sector is essential to combat scams more effectively,” Lowe said.
“That’s why we continue to lend our expertise and support to prepare for the establishment of the government’s National Anti-Scam Centre, with the ultimate aim of making Australia the hardest target for scammers.”
Industry leaders are already praising the announcement.
"This new anti-scam centre is good news and I'm hopeful that with the addition of education and awareness, these government measures will support the decrease of Australians becoming victims of scams. There are potentially more sustained and scalable results in the prevention of ‘people clicking’ and engaging with these scams in the first place," Jacqueline Jayne, Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, told us via email.
"Empowering Australians to make better decisions when it comes to security should be the goal. Prevention equals ongoing and relevant education for every single Australian to increase their basic cyber hygiene and be able to spot the red flags for phishing (malicious emails), smishing (malicious SMS), vishing (voice version of phishing) and even QR code phishing."
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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