The Do Not Call Register

Which calls are telemarketing

The register’s industry pages describe a telemarketing call as a voice call whose purpose is to offer, supply or provide, or to advertise or seek, goods or services, land or an interest in land, a business or investment opportunity, or donations. The ACMA adds that commercial calls made with an auto-dialler, or using pre-recorded or AI voices, are all telemarketing calls, and that a call with several purposes is commercial if any one of them is to sell or promote.

Some calls are not treated as telemarketing at all: calls about a product recall, fault verification, rescheduling or reminding about an appointment, payments, and calls a person asked for about their order, request or enquiry. The ACMA says a call requested by a consumer and made within a reasonable time of the request is generally not a telemarketing call.

That last point matters for anyone collecting leads through a form. The register’s own consumer page gives, as an example of express consent, someone completing a web form requesting contact.

Before a registered number can be called

The prohibition on calling a registered number does not apply in three situations, which the register’s industry pages set out as follows.

1. The list was washed in the last 30 daysThe caller checked its list against the register within the previous 30 days and the number was not on it.
2. The account holder consentedThe phone account holder, or their nominee, consented to the call.
3. A genuine mistakeThe call was made by mistake, and the caller took reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to avoid it.

How long consent lasts

Express consent that was not given for a set period, or indefinitely, lapses three months after it was given. Inferred consent can come from a person’s conduct and their business or other relationships, and it ends immediately once the person says they do not want the calls. A number being publicly available, in a directory or on a website, is not consent, and neither is having accepted marketing calls from the organisation in the past.

Washing a list

To check numbers against the register you open an account and buy a subscription, then upload your list; the washed list comes back with registered numbers identified. For occasional callers washing up to 500 numbers a year, subscription type A carries no fee, and a Quick check facility handles fewer than 10 numbers at once.

The register’s contact centre is on 1300 792 958, Monday to Friday, 8.30 am to 5.00 pm.

Who may call registered numbers anyway

The Act has limited exemptions for registered charities, educational institutions, government bodies, registered political parties, social researchers and opinion pollsters to make specific calls that have no commercial-type purpose. A researcher’s call stops being exempt if it has any commercial purpose, even a secondary one. Business numbers cannot be added to the register, though a phone used for both business and personal calls can be registered if personal use is more than half.

Rules for every telemarketing call

The Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017 applies to anyone making or arranging telemarketing or research calls to Australian numbers, including numbers not on the register and callers who are exempt from the Act. It sets four kinds of rule, in this order. Calling line identification has to be on, with the number able to take return calls for at least 30 days. Calls are limited to the hours in the table below unless the person has consented to being called at that time. A call has to be ended immediately in either of two cases: the person asks for it to end or otherwise shows they do not want to continue; or the caller learns that the person is away from their usual residential address, that it is outside the permitted calling times where they are now, and the person does not specifically say they want the call to go on. And certain information has to be given during the call.

The standard counts Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday and Anzac Day as national public holidays, along with any day given in lieu.

When someone else makes the calls

Both the telemarketer and the business that wants the calls made have to comply. Anyone entering a telemarketing arrangement with a third party must include express provisions requiring compliance with the Act, and leaving them out can attract penalties. The legislation applies wherever a call comes from; where an overseas telemarketer breaches it, the register’s FAQ says the ACMA will go after the Australian company connected to that telemarketer.

Penalties under the Act are civil rather than criminal, and the register’s compliance and breaches page sets out the amounts.