A provisional license has been awarded to Australian Local Directories Pty Ltd to use and disclose data from the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) as a public number directory publisher.

This is the first authorisation to be granted under the Telecommjnications Integrated public Number Database Scheme 2007 (the IPND Scheme).

The IPND is an industry wide database of all listed and unlisted public telephone numbers. It was established in 1998 and is managed by Telstra.

To provide a gatekeeper role for the IPND scheme, the ACMA assesses applications to use and disclose IPND data for purposes connected with the publication and maintenance of public numnber directories, or research.

ACMA application assessments ensure the personal information of the Australian public is only used for approved purposes and the data remains secure.

Australian Local Directories Pty Ltd was able to demonstrate that its directory products comply with the scheme and as a result was granted provisional authorisation.

This allows the organisation to access a subset of IPND data in order to produce a sample public number directory for ACMA's assessment of an application for final authorisation.

Once granted, Australian Local Directories Pty Ltd will be allowed to publish public number directories using IPND data.

A certain level of protection is required because in the past there has been cases of IPND data being used inappropriately.