Stronger telco obligations essential for victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) is calling for stronger telco obligations to ensure victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) are treated fairly, safely and consistently across the telecommunications sector.

The TIO recommends areas where service provider obligations can be strengthened or expanded, including:

• requiring telcos to take economic abuse into consideration when considering credit management action and providing hardship assistance
• obligating telcos to connect or reconnect a victim-survivor to a service if they rely on a phone or internet service for safety reasons
• mandating remedies the telco can offer, including financial hardship assistance, cancelling a service, issuing a new phone number, conducting a SIM swap, and reconnecting disconnected or suspended services
• obligating telcos to have processes in place so victim-survivors are not required to tell their story multiple times
• requiring telcos to apply additional privacy protections to victim-survivor accounts at their request (for example, a PIN or password)
• obligating telcos to facilitate the transfer of a phone number the victim-survivor is the end user of away from the account of a perpetrator.

The call for strengthened obligations is highlighted in TIO’s recent submission on ACMA’s proposed Telecommunications (Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Consumer Protections) Industry Standard 2025 (DFSV Standard).

The TIO acknowledges improvements across industry but says more prescriptive obligations are required to adequately protect and support victim-survivors.

Read the submission (PDF, 301KB)

Comments attributable to Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert:

“The TIO is still concerned about gaps in the DFSV Standard that could leave victim-survivors unprotected. We want to see obligations that fill the current gap – this means obligations must be mandatory and clearly state actions telcos need to take that support better outcomes for victim-survivors.”

“We should not be seeing phone and internet complaints from DFSV victim-survivors involving mistakes that clear expectations could help telcos to avoid. For example, we are still seeing complaints involving telcos inadvertently disclosing the personal information of victim-survivors, putting their safety at risk.”