Junk faxes could be banned like spam

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 28 August 2007 01:46

IT Policy - Regulation

Unsolicited fax messages could soon be banned as spam, if ideas floated in a new Government discussion paper are implemented.

Unsolicited email has been banned in Australia since the Spam Act came into force in 2003, but  the Act did not cover faxes. However a review of the Act has since been undertaken by the Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts and its report , published in mid 2006,  recommended that an examination of extending the Act to faxes be undertaken.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan has now issued the Government's response  to the report accepting or accepting in principle all its recommendations. Release of the discussion paper on fax spam is part of this response.

The discussion paper notes that "Apart from the general requirements set out by the Privacy Act, there is no legislated or industry requirement specific to the use of fax marketing. In particular, there is no general requirement across the fax marketing industry to: seek the consent of the recipient before sending a message; or comply with a request to opt-out of receiving further faxes from a particular organisation."

It says that this lack of specific requirements on the fax marketing industry has been reported as problematic for some fax users. "While the Australian Government has received complaints from some individuals and businesses about the receipt of unsolicited faxes, it is unclear how representative these are of views in the broader community.

The discussion paper says it is unclear how big a problem this is for fax users. Accordingly, further information is sought on what impact unsolicited commercial faxes have on individuals and small businesses (both positively and negatively). Comment is also sought on the volume of unsolicited commercial faxes received from Australia and overseas companies and the experiences of users in trying to opt-out or otherwise control the volume of unsolicited fax material received.

The discussion paper concludes that any action to curb 'junk' faxing "must be effective in assisting fax users to manage the volume of unsolicited faxes received, it must also be efficient in terms of the cost impost on the fax marketing industry, users and the Australian Government.  The main options that could assist users to control the volume of unsolicited commercial faxes are industry self regulation and bringing commercial faxes under the coverage of the Spam Act 2003."