ACA calls public meetings on new rules for adult content on mobile phones

The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) is to hold a series of public meetings to discuss proposed new rules to protect consumers, especially children, accessing new premium services using their mobile phones.

The meetings will be held in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne on 7, 8 and 9 February respectively.

“We are looking for feedback about proposed measures to restrict access by children to adult content, to prohibit explicit content and to protect children who use chat rooms on their mobile phones from behaviour such as paedophile grooming,” ACA Acting Chairman Dr Bob Horton said.

The measures include safeguards for children using chat rooms and require that the chat rooms be monitored.

“Feedback from the public on the new rules will help to ensure that they are practical and effective, and are a fair response to the risks associated with mobile premium services.”

The proposed rules address community expectations about preventing explicit adult content being accessed on mobile phones and restricting access to other adult content to people who are 18 and over.

“Our intention is to promote a sustainable and responsible market for premium services accessed by mobiles, and a safe environment for the use of mobile phones.

“If inappropriate material is found to be accessible through mobile phones, the rules give the ACA the ability to have it removed quickly,” he said.

“We also want to ensure that consumers are informed about the costs of mobile premium services and how they can unsubscribe to services they no longer want, and we’re interested to hear from people about the best way of achieving this,” he said.

“This is a completely new area of regulation and the ACA is very keen to have as much feedback as possible,” Dr Horton concluded.

The new rules focus on premium services accessed through text messages (SMS), multimedia messages (MMS), and mobile carrier portals. These services provide content such as sports scores, streaming of audio and video music clips and sports highlights, as well as mobile ring tones, wallpaper, games and applications for downloading.

More information about the meetings, as well as the proposed rules and discussion paper is on the ACA website at: www.aca.gov.au/telcomm/premiumservices or contact Mark Dossetor on telephone 03 9963 6995.

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