Summary

  • ACMA's new annual report says it found two computer-made approvals on 15 June 2026 for SMS sender names composed solely of restricted terms.
  • No substituted decisions were made during 2025–26. The regulator says the action to substitute them will appear in its 2026–27 report.

A gate designed to keep generic authority-sounding SMS names out gave two of them a pass. In Appendix 1.10 of its annual report, tabled on 22 October, Australia's communications regulator says it discovered on 15 June that computer programs had incorrectly accepted two applications for sender IDs consisting only of restricted terms. The report does not print the two names. The failure is about a decision the register made, not a suspicion generated by a detection model.

The restricted-term rule bars names made solely from words such as “alert”, “bank” or “urgent”. An identifying addition can make a restricted word usable: ACMA gives “ACMA Alert” as an example. Those examples are the published rule, not the identities of the two errant registrations. The distinction matters because a label at the top of a text message carries an implied claim about who sent it.

In its automation notice, ACMA reserved computer-made decisions for objective approvals. It said computers would not refuse applications or make discretionary decisions. The same notice says an incorrect automated decision will be replaced by a substitute decision and the entity notified. Its annual report records zero substituted decisions in the year ending 30 June; the action for these two cases is to be reported in 2026–27. Discovery and formal correction therefore occupy different lines in the public record.

The register went live on 1 July. ACMA's June-quarter figures show 39,562 sender IDs registered by 30 June for 27,361 entities, with 400 telcos approved to participate. That total describes the register's scale. It does not tell readers how many decisions a computer made or establish an error rate. The next meaningful receipt is the substituted decision: when it was made, what happened to the two entries, and how the approval rule was fixed.

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