The Australian Government recently made changes to the National Do Not Call Register (DNCR), set up under the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth), to extend the scope of its operations. However, the extension was not as far reaching as originally proposed, and does not cover business telephone numbers.
The DNCR is a database managed by the Australian telecommunications regulator, where telephone numbers can be listed to avoid receiving unsolicited telemarketing calls. The protection covers telemarketing calls from within Australia and overseas. In general, it is an offence for an organisation to place an unsolicited call to a number on the DNCR.
Before the recent changes, only private fixed line and mobile telephone numbers could be registered. A number must also be re-registered every three years. In May 2010 the DNCR was amended by:
- extending the registration period to five years
- allowing government bodies and emergency services to register their numbers, and,/li>
- allowing fax numbers (both business and personal) to be registered.
The second and third changes extend the operation of the DNCR, and are considered desirable to avoid the situation where unwanted telemarketing calls divert emergency or government resources, and to reduce unwanted marketing faxes impacting on business productivity.
The original plan to extend the DNCR to business telephone numbers has been withdrawn, following lobbying from small business and marketing industry lobby groups. In particular, there were concerns that extending the DNCR to cover business telephone numbers may impede legitimate business communications. However, the Minister for Telecommunications has indicated that this issue may be revisited in the future.
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