Post by ACCC

Spending time with consumer protection agencies gives us a chance to learn from each other and realise how much we have in common. Thank you to the Dominican Republic's Pro Consumidor for hosting the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN) Annual Conference and Best Practices Workshop in Punta Cana this month. We were represented by Fraser Inwood (from our Intelligence team) and Chris O'Yang (from our Consumer Fair Trading Enforcement team). We led a session on methods for analysing consumer complaints. We shared how we turn high volumes of reports into the intelligence behind our enforcement work and heard how other agencies are approaching the same task. Our top-level lessons from the week were: 💡Many agencies are exploring using AI to build smarter, more intelligence-led consumer protection systems. 💡Cross-border consumer harm is a shared challenge that no single agency can solve alone. 💡There is impressive work being built behind the scenes, getting to see the tools being developed for complaints analysis and market monitoring were a genuine highlight. Thank you again to Pro Consumidor for your warm hospitality. The challenges we face are increasingly digital and borderless, and engagement like this is how we get better at meeting them together.