An Aussie financial services provider gets a slap on the wrist over 2.7 million discrete breaches of Australian anti-spam laws after the company self-reported the matter.
Following an investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), financial services provider Latitude Financial has agreed to pay a penalty of $3.96 million after it was found to be in breach of the country’s spam laws.
The company was found to be in breach in excess of 2.7 million times between March 2024 and April 2025. Latitude sent more than 2.3 million messages promoting its credit card and other financial products with correct contact details, more than 300,000 of which lacked any working feature to unsubscribe from the material.
You’re out of free articles for this month
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
The ACMA discovered the breaches via Latitude, which reported the incidents under mandatory compliance reporting.
ACMA member Samantha Yorke said the penalty’s size reflected the company’s “repeated compliance failures”.
“Latitude is now a two‑time offender, and it is disappointing that it let consumers down again,” Yorke said.
“The spam laws have been in place for more than 20 years, and there is simply no excuse for ongoing non‑compliance, particularly after a prior enforcement action.”
“Under Australia’s spam laws, consumers have the option to unsubscribe from commercial messages, and that process must work.
“They must also provide accurate information within the message about how the sender can be contacted.”
Latitude Financial must now accept a court-enforceable undertaking and has responded to the penalty with the steps it is taking.
“Latitude acknowledges the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) findings and enforceable undertaking,” Latitude said in a 15 April ASX announcement.
“The credit card entity of Latitude Group Holdings Limited has entered into an enforceable undertaking with the ACMA and paid a $3.96 million fine for breaching the Spam Act.”
Latitude noted that it had reported the breaches to the ACMA as soon as they were discovered and “immediately strengthened its spam compliance processes”.
“As part of the enforceable undertaking, Latitude will engage an independent expert to confirm that its strengthened spam processes are operating compliantly,” Latitude said.
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?
Make Cyber Daily a preferred news source on Google.
David Hollingworth
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.