LAURA JAYES:
Welcome back. The federal government has joined forces with the banks, telcos and an Australian body investigating financial crimes in a bid to crack down on online scammers. This is an initiative that was announced by the Financial Services Minister, Stephen Jones in the last hour. He joins me live now. Stephen Jones, great to see you. I know that you are aware of how prolific these scams are now, and the different ways in which they come directly to our phones, and it’s really hard to tell the difference between a scam and something legitimate these days. So, what exactly have you announced today and how will it work?
STEPHEN JONES:
This is just the next phase in our scam busting agenda. We stood up the National Anti‑Scam Centre last year. It’s working. We’re doing website takedowns of fake investment scams. This newest initiative, we’re calling it the ‘intelligence loop’ or the ‘intel loop’, is gathering data from the banks, the telcos, the National Anti‑Scam Centre and feeding that through in real time. If we detect a fake SMS message or a fake phone call, we’re intercepting it. In some instances, we’re able to warn the victim, or the potential victim in real time that they’re about to receive a phone call or they have received a phone call from one of these criminal organisations. And the next phase after this will be even more web takedowns of the fake phishing sites. To make that real, Laura, your listeners would have seen text messages on their phones, whether they’re from Linkt or pretending to be from Linkt or from Coles or Woolworths around bonus credit points and the like. Typically they’re phishing exercises. You press one of those bloody blue links you go through and they invite you to upload your credit card details and other details. So, it’s about blocking that stuff out and stopping it getting through to victims. Because once you upload that information, your money is gone.
JAYES:
Yeah, that’s right. But as you mentioned, you’re trying to block it out, but we’re still getting them. I got one last night at 12:53 am. Well, this morning at 12:53 am that tells you everything you need to know about what time these messages come through. That’s a red flag. ‘Hey, legend, your Coles rewards point to do a disappearing act, time to cash in.’ So, look, there are a few red flags in that particular message, but if you’re talking about blocking them, it’s not. Well, you’re not blocking them. Some are still getting through a lot. I imagine.
JONES:
Billions are being blocked and that just gives you a sense of the scale of what is coming through.
JAYES:
Billions. When you say billions, are you talking about every, every day or is it billions a week? What is.
JONES:
No. Over the course of months, we are literally being bombarded with these things that are being sent to Australians.
JAYES:
So, how do these ones get through?
JONES:
So, when we block a phone number, a new phone number is established. We block that phone number, a new phone number is established. So, this is a part of the overall agenda. The next phase of it will be our telephone registry, which will have even more capacity to block more of the phone calls and the SMS messages. So, this is a rolling wall, Laura and every time we put in place initiatives, the scammers and the criminals will move to something else. The important thing about this partnership, we’re gathering the intelligence, and we’re acting in real time to pull down the websites and block the phone calls and the SMS’s.
JAYES:
Yeah, I mean, they’re one thing, Stephen. As you know –
JONES:
And if the scammers react, we’re going to have to move it to another level.
JAYES:
And social media, I mean, look at all the scams on social media. I know in your media conference you spoke about pretty sophisticated websites dedicated to scams, but what about the AI that’s being used to manipulate someone’s voice like mine, to look like it’s authoritative and try and sell a product? I mean, are you ahead of that? And are social media companies doing enough to clamp down on these scammers? They just seem to be happy to allow it to happen.
JONES:
No, they’re not doing enough. And that’s what the next phase of our anti scam agenda is about. There’ll be new laws introduced into parliament later this year. They’ll put obligations on banks, on telcos and on social media companies to do more to keep their ecosystem safe, to be removing the false and criminal and malicious and dangerous content, and ensuring that if they don’t do that, then there is a liability that follows from that. Social media companies have got an obligation to follow the laws in the countries in which they operate. They’re not above the law, and I’ve just got back from Singapore and what I’m trying to work on here is not having Australia working one out on this. I’ve been working closely with our colleagues in New Zealand as well, and we’re all of the same view. And if these social media platforms are operating in our countries, then they have an obligation. A – to keep their system safe and to follow the laws of those countries. They’re not above the law. So, what you can expect to see in Australia and other countries around the world is concerted action to take the fight up. Some people say it’s hopeless, you can never beat them. I don’t believe that. I believe a lot can be done to keep Australians safe, and we’ve seen good results so far. What we’ve stood up already over the last 12 months, we’ve seen a 16 per cent reduction in scam losses. We are the only country in the world that can say we’ve achieved that. So, I don’t think it’s hopeless. I think there’s a lot we can do.
JAYES:
What about Peter Dutton talking about clamping down on social media companies when it comes to the age limit? He wants to see it at 16, he says it can be done and you throw everything at it. Essentially, he’s talking about, you know, there being an adverse tax component added to these social media companies. He also, in his words, extended the hand of friendship. Do this in a bipartisan way, will you?
JONES:
Look, in some respects he’s playing catch up on this one.
JAYES:
Not really, you haven’t put an age limit on it.
JONES:
We have already announced we’re piloting –
JAYES:
You haven’t landed it on an age limit. He says 16.
JONES:
It’s actually not true. Let me just be quite clear. There’s not a contest over whether we want to have age limits in place for people, for kids on social media platforms. Two things need to be done. Yes, we need to have technology that works and systems that work, which is why my colleague Michelle Rowland is piloting some technology at the moment to see how we can actually make this work. Anyone can stand up and make a media conference. What matters is having the technology, the systems and the laws that work. That’s what we’re working on at the moment. Happy to work with Peter Dutton and others, by the way. If he’s going to be on board with this to get legislation and stuff through parliament. Happy to work with him and others. But I want to say something else – it’s not just about keeping kids away from the harmful content, it’s about getting some of this bloody harmful content off the platforms in the first place. Some of this stuff just shouldn’t be there. Violent, malicious, criminal content should not be on the social media platforms. This ain’t about free speech. It’s about a decent society.
JAYES:
Stephen Jones, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.
JONES:
Good to be with you.