National Anti-Scam Centre Set to Open in July as Australians Lose Billions to Scams

A record 2.7m online scams were taken down last year by the National Cyber Security Centre (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The federal government will spend $58 million (US$38.64 million) to establish a new National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC), which is set to open in July.

Created as a pathway to gather all expertise and resources together to devise ways to prevent scammers from contacting Australians in the first place, it will be overseen by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe has welcomed the Australian government’s commitment and funding over the next two years.

“We’ll be using this funding to build the technology needed to support high-frequency data sharing with a range of agencies, law enforcement and the private sector, with the mission to make Australia a harder target for scammers,” ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said on May 15.

While the new body will work to educate consumers on avoiding scams and telling them where to get help if they become victims. The NASC will also enable quicker response to scams, with the centre sharing scam reports with critical organisations such as banks, telcos and other digital platforms and advise on taking adequate measures to stop scammers.

“The centre will bring together the expertise and resources to disrupt scammers making contact with Australians, raise consumer awareness about how to avoid scams, and link scam victims to services where they have lost money or had their identity compromised,” said Lowe.

“Through increased sharing of scam reports and other initiatives, the centre will help inform finance, telecommunications and digital platforms sectors to take more timely and effective steps to stop scammers,” Lowe added.

Opening in July this year, it is expected that the more complex data-sharing technology will be completed over the next two years.

Where Will the $58 million Funding Go

Out of the $58 million funding from the government, $44 million will be spent on establishing the technology necessary to receive a report of a scam from any institution, private or government, and then able to centralise this intelligence before sharing it with relevant organisations.

Then, with the shared information, banks will be able to freeze an account, telcos can block a call, or digital platforms can take down a website. In the meantime, the centre can utilise its latest information to educate the public.

NASC will use the remaining $14 million as a resource to provide education and communications with private sectors and continue its ongoing data analysis, information gathering and disruption.

Australians Lost a Record $3.1 Billion to Scams in 2022

According to the ACCC  annual Targeting Scams report, released in April this year, Australians lost a record $3.1 billion to scams in 2022, an 80 percent increase in total losses recorded from 2021.

The report compiles data reported to the ACCC’s Scamwatch, ReportCyber, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX), IDCARE and other government agencies.

Among the losses, the biggest category was investment scams which took away $1.5 billion, followed by remote access scams ($229 million. This was followed by payment redirection scams ($224 million).

While the financial losses are enormous to those individuals and businesses involved, the emotional and mental damage is hard to calculate in monetary terms.

Scamwatch received 239,237 scam reports last year, with a financial loss totalling $569 million, a 76 percent increase compared to 2021.

“Scammers evolve quickly, and unfortunately, many Australians are losing their life savings,” Lowe said.

“There has been an explosion of reported losses to phishing scams in the past year, such as “Hi Mum” and Toll/Linkt text scams, which skyrocketed by 469 percent to $24.6 million in 2022”.

“We have seen alarming new tactics emerge, making scams incredibly difficult to detect. This includes everything from impersonating official phone numbers, email addresses and websites of legitimate organisations to scam texts that appear in the same conversation thread as genuine messages. This means now more than ever, anyone can fall victim to a scam.”

As scammers increase their collaborative efforts, more Australians become more vulnerable to their tactics, followed by recent large-scale, high-profile data breaches.

Lowe said that once more muscular coordination of anti-scam efforts across government, finance, the Telcos and digital platforms had been achieved, there would be a significant impact on the fight against scams.