Telstra slapped with $3m fine for triple-0 outage

Telstra has been fined $3m for a triple-0 outage earlier this year that led to 127 calls not being transferred to emergency services.

Australia’s largest telco has been slapped with a $3m fine, after issues including a database failure and software bug stopped triple-0 phone calls getting forwarded to emergency services.

According to an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation, 127 emergency phone calls were not transferred to emergency services during a 90-minute period on March 1 2024.

Telstra has been fined $3m for failing to transfer emergency phone calls. Picture: NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

As the national operator of the triple-0 service, Telstra has obligations in relation to the handling and transferring calls made to emergency service numbers.

Telstra managed those calls by providing the callers’ details to the relevant emergency service organisations via email messages and phone calls.

The investigation found Telstra had 473 breaches of rules in total. While Telstra successfully managed to transfer the remaining 346 calls using the backup phone list, Telstra could not provide the caller’s digital location information to the emergency service organisations due to the disruption.

This resulted in 127 emergency calls not making it through.

In a statement to NewsWire, Telstra apologised for the mishap.

“People rely on triple-0 in their greatest times of need. In March, we let people down. We apologise wholeheartedly to everyone who was impacted when calling triple-0 during the disruption,” a Telstra spokesperson said.

“We want to reassure the Australian public that we worked quickly to understand what occurred, and made appropriate improvements, so that everyone can be confident that triple-0 will be there to support them when they need it.”

It comes after Optus was ordered to pay $12m in penalties when thousands of its customers were unable to call triple-0 during last year’s network outages.

ACMA member and consumer lead Samantha Yorke said it was concerning that breaches occurred because Telstra neglected to update its backup phone data.

ACMA says 127 emergency phone calls failed to pass through to emergency services. Picture: NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

“Telstra, as the emergency call provider, is at the centre of this critical public safety service. As such, it must have fail-safe systems and processes in place at all times. In this circumstance its systems and contingency plans failed people in real need,” Ms Yorke said.

Ms Yorke acknowledged Telstra had a historically strong record of compliance in its role as the national triple-0 operator and made considerable efforts to keep the public informed during the outage.

“Telstra has been open and apologetic about the outage, communicated effectively to the public and took a variety of immediate actions when problems were identified. These actions go a long way to restoring the community’s trust in this critical service,” Ms Yorke said.

The ACMA also notes the action Telstra has taken to rectify its processes following the incident, including updating its backup phone number list and appointing an independent consultant to conduct an incident review.