Industry and Technology Committee on June 8th, 2026

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witness for his opening testimony and for taking the time to come to us all the way from down under.

As we know at this committee, this is a very important and timely study. All of us have heard countless stories in our ridings about different circumstances surrounding fraud and about seniors who have been subjected to fraud.

I have a personal story of someone who, over a period of nine months, was scammed out of their entire life savings. It started as a technical scam and originated as something that popped up on their computer, and then it turned into a nine-month, long-drawn-out psychological scam. Someone thought they were dealing with the FBI and ended up forking over their entire life savings, with no accountability from any of the institutions that allowed this money to be turned over. Really, there was no recourse for this individual.

Australia is particularly important for us to hear from, because your prevention framework is described as having an ecosystem approach, one that recognizes, as you've said, that scams begin upstream, before the money ever moves. I was wondering if you could walk the committee through what that means in practice. Who's regulated? What obligations apply? How does the system link banks, telecoms and digital platforms in one single chain of accountability?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

The scams prevention framework legislation was passed by Australian Parliament in February of last year. The enabling regulation has begun to work its way through the system. The basic structure is that each key industry sector—the digital platforms, the telecommunications sector and the banking sector—have a set of obligations under the headings of “detect”, “prevent” and “respond to” scams. There are a few others, such as governance, but these are the three most important ones.

They are responsible to their sector regulator. In the case of the banking sector, our normal regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, is the regulator for us for scams. It's similar for telcos and their regulator, and the platforms have actually had to find a new regulator because until now there wasn't one.

Each of those sectors has code obligations that are managed by sector regulators. Across that, there's a new super regulator, if you like, that sits horizontally for the issue of scams across all sectors. Its role is to make sure that the obligations are joined up and equivalent.

In my opening statement, I made the comment that keeping bad people out of your system in the first place is one way to help protect your citizens. For banks, we do that through KYC and through telcos. If someone really wants to send 10,000 SMSes in a minute—and there are legitimate use cases for that—find out who they are. Is that a genuine use case? Don't let just anybody use that product. Similarly for the platforms, if someone wants to advertise a financial product, check that they actually hold an Australian financial services licence, which is the licence that's required to offer investment products in Australia, before you allow them to advertise their product.

The obligations are different for each sector, but they have the same flavour because they have the same purpose—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I'm sorry, Mr. Giurietto. I thought you might have been done there.

Before passing it back to Mr. Guglielmin, I'm just going to say that another witness has joined us, David Pegley, who is the managing director of the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange.

Mr. Pegley, welcome. Unfortunately, we won't have time for you to provide introductory remarks.

However, colleagues, you are more than welcome to ask Mr. Pegley questions as a witness here today.

Mr. Guglielmin, there remain just over two minutes for you, sir.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Canada currently places the bulk of its obligations on banks, which see the fraud only after the money has actually moved. From Australia's experience, what happens if the government places that burden on banks while platforms and telecom companies have fewer obligations?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

The Australian ecosystem specifically makes all of those sectors, and future sectors, equally responsible for taking their share. If it's banks alone, you end up trying to stop the fire when it's already raging. There are things that banks can, should and must do to secure their platforms.

Particularly for the telcos and platforms, when they take action earlier, it's possible to intervene in scams earlier. The vital link here is sharing information across the sectors. When a bank becomes aware of a scam victim, if we can share that information with a telco or platform.... It is too late to help the first victim—that is true, and it's devastating—but at least the information can then be shared back to clean up the pipeline of future victims.

Over time, it makes it a more expensive proposition for the scammers to target Australia, as opposed to another country, so they might put their efforts elsewhere.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

You noted that around 90% of scam losses in Australia come from individual losses exceeding $5,000 Australian. These are losses that the ABA describes as “life changing”. Who's experiencing those losses most acutely?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

The range of people who become subject to scams includes all of society. There's sometimes a stereotype that only the elderly become victims of scams. The reality is that scammers are brilliant psychologists, and they will find a way to get to just about everybody. It could be a parent dropping off their children at school and responding to a text message while they're trying to park their car. There are so many ways that they will do it, so there is no classic pattern.

Every citizen is a potential scam victim, and every citizen therefore needs some support to be protected from that.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Mr. Guglielmin.

We'll go to Madame O'Rourke now for six minutes.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Giurietto or Mr. Pegley, the government currently has legislation before the House on lawful access, which would enable law enforcement to have more access to platforms in order to rapidly intercept crimes. They could be scams. They could be human trafficking.

I wonder if you can tell us how important Australia's lawful access has been in helping you tackle fraud.

[Nicholas Giurietto]

I might let David take some of this, but engagement with law enforcement is an absolutely vital part of the overall scam and fraud response. Like Canada, Australia has a federal system with overlapping police responsibilities that can sometimes make things a bit complicated to navigate, but being able to do the intelligence sharing and take action—either sharing the intel or, in some cases, supporting law enforcement in taking action—is very important.

Private-to-private data sharing is at least equally important, in that sometimes the private sector can use so-called scam signals that fall short of the legal standard that law enforcement might need to meet before they can initiate a prosecution or some other action. It's simply information that can be shared to say, “Watch out for this; there might be some possibilities here to take action” and flag a risk. That's very important as well. The two can operate together.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Do you want to add to that quickly? I have two other questions.

[David Pegley, Managing Director, Australian Financial Crimes Exchange Ltd.]

Sure. Thank you for the opportunity.

I'll add to Nick's comments that in our experience, the prevention and detection side of our work invariably means that we're ahead of the crime or in the process of the crime. We've found that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Pegley, I'm going to intervene for a moment. Actually, this is for both witnesses. It's really important that we get the proper positioning for the microphone.

We're going to try that again with you, Mr. Pegley, to see if it's working. We'll perform a really quick test before you continue.

I'll pause the clock, Madame O'Rourke.

[David Pegley]

Does this work? Is this a better position?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Could you raise the arm bar on the microphone a bit higher? Try that.

[David Pegley]

Thank you.

While we share intelligence among private sector participants, we also have formal relationships with all state and federal law enforcement agencies. This enables them to task us with operational information to support their work, which is usually after the fact. Invariably, we focus on trying to share consumer-based information as rapidly as we can across the ecosystem. After the fact, law enforcement agencies are very keen to get the mass data to support their operations work. Invariably, the crime is after the fact.

Most of the crime we've come across is offshore, unfortunately. There is some domestic money mule activity that has been identified and some SIM box work, which Nick was talking about earlier. However, invariably most of the bad actors affecting the Australian community are international.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I have a couple of things. Can you remind this committee of the results you've seen in Australia in just one year following the introduction of your new framework? How have the platforms responded in Australia? How key is awareness for customers to know that it's difficult to recover funds?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

There are a few pieces there.

The scams prevention framework legislation passed, but it is still in the process of implementation. It's actually a bit too early to say what the direct impact of that legislation will be, although even announcing the scams prevention framework had a positive effect in terms of encouraging collaboration between the sectors.

We have seen a reduction in scam volumes. The numbers are, unfortunately, a little difficult, because there are multiple sources and there are some legitimate questions about the best way to count them. Probably, the worst description would be that they're flat, and every other option is better than that. There is collaboration among the sectors.

We have managed to do some significant pilots at this stage with the platforms. Information has been shared from banks back to the platforms, which have been able to use that information to take down scam content. As the SPF rolls out and comes up to industrial scale, we expect to see it become an even bigger driver of a reduction in scam losses.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Madame O'Rourke.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, the floor is yours for six minutes, sir.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello to the two witnesses joining us today. We're glad to have them here.

Mr. Pegley, you didn't have time to give your opening remarks. If you're like to do it now, you can have my question time. That will give us a chance to hear the message you want to convey to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Pegley, did that work? Could you hear that?

[David Pegley]

Yes, in French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Okay. I'll translate it for you. We'll get that fixed.

Essentially, Monsieur Ste-Marie was saying that you did not have an opportunity at the outset to provide opening remarks, and he would be happy to provide you with some time during his question period to have you offer an opinion.