SMS Sender ID Register

The SMS Sender ID Register

To combat SMS scams and protect consumers, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is implementing a mandatory SMS Sender ID Register.

This new regulation requires companies and organisations that use their company name as the sender name, or branded sender ID for text messages (for example a text message with "Optus" as the sender) to register those names to ensure message authenticity.

From 1 July 2026, unregistered sender IDs may be blocked or labelled as “Unverified,” helping consumers more easily identify legitimate communications. 

Why is the ACMA developing an SMS Sender ID Register?

The SMS Sender ID Register will help stop scammers using branded text messages to impersonate well-known brands. Australians lose millions of dollars to text message scams annually. The register is part of the government’s Fighting Scams initiative to protect Australians from impersonation scams. 

What is the SMS Sender ID register?

It’s a national register of approved Company names that can be used as the branded sender ID for SMS/MMS messages. For example, amaysim sends you a SMS bill notification. It helps verify the identity of message senders and reduce scams.

What is a branded Sender ID?

Many businesses communicate with their customers using text messages. Reasons might include providing appointment updates, sharing marketing campaigns or sending two-factor authentication codes. 

Many businesses that communicate with customers using text messages will do so via a messaging platform rather than sending messages from a mobile handset. Some of these businesses elect to do this using a branded sender ID. This means that the messages that arrive on a customer’s handset will not appear as coming from a mobile number like normal text messages but instead will appear from a word or combination of letters and numbers, like ‘amaysim’. 

Understanding ‘verified’ and ‘unverified’ messages

A sender ID is the branded name at the top of text messages from a business or organisation. It says who the message is from, like “amaysim”. 

Texts using a branded sender ID from businesses that haven’t registered will show as being sent from "Unverified”. This is a clear signal that the message may not be from who it says it is.

Over the last few years, scammers have worked out how to send messages fraudulently using the branded sender IDs of legitimate businesses, potentially tricking the recipients into sharing information or making payments. The new SMS Sender ID standard creates rules about who can register and use branded sender IDs, and how telecommunications providers send them, and interrupt them if they are not registered. This aims to reduce the ability of scammers to undertake impersonation scams and to provide consumers with more confidence that messages that come from a branded sender ID, come from registered business and not from someone else.