Reverse phone searches, also known as Reverse phone lookup in the United States, are NOT AVAILABLE in Australia.
It is not lawful to carry out such searches for Australian phone numbers.
Beware of anyone offering such reverse phone search service for Australian phone numbers because you will find they are using pre-2001 phone databases. You'll pay for a search to be told: "no sorry, not listed" or similar. How do you prove you were cheated?
"Telstra protects privacy against reverse directories"
Telstra, for those not familiar with the name, it's Australia's primary telephone carrier.
In the matter of Telstra Corporation Ltd v Desktop Marketing Systems Pty Ltd [2001] FCA 612 (29 June 2001)
(Justice) Finkelstein J of the Federal Court has held that the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) does give Telstra copyright in the white pages directories, yellow pages directories and headings books (lists of headings used in the yellow pages), and that the defendants (DtMs) had infringed that copyright by making various CD-ROMs from the Telstra data.
In a very lengthy judgment reviewing the whole history of copyright in factual works, Finkelstein J concluded:
[109] In this case, the substance of the information that has been taken from Telstra´s works (the directory portion of the directories and the headings that appear in the yellow pages directories and headings books) has been reproduced in the CD-ROMs. It must be remembered that copyright is not claimed for each particular entry, because copyright does not subsist in each individual recorded fact. It is claimed in the whole of the collected data, ordered in a particular way. As regards the directories, the significant recorded facts (name, address, telephone number, and the relevant type of business) are the same, or substantially the same, as they appear in Telstra´s works. While there are differences, they are in the detail. For example, when displayed on a screen, the information from the CD-ROM does not appear as columns on a page. But the information can be retrieved in alphabetical order (by postcode rather than region) and can be examined in much the same way as one would read a column on a page. The fact that the alphabetical listings are by postcode and not region, is not a material difference. Nor is the fact that portions of the advertisements are not reproduced. As regards the headings, it is true that they appear once only in each yellow pages directory and that the heading appears with each business entry in the CD-ROMs. This difference is immaterial. All the headings have been taken, as have all the listings beneath those headings. The appearance of the headings and the listings in the CD-ROMs is sufficiently similar to constitute a reproduction.
The DtMs product called Phonedisk was a ‘reverse telephone directory´ in the sense that the data may be searched by telephone number to obtain the name and address of a subscriber. It is also possible to search for subscribers within a particular postcode, and by proximity to the post office.
Privacy issues did not play a part in the Court´s reasoning, but the indirect effect is that, since Telstra does not publish a reverse telephone directory, and it can now prevent anyone else doing so, reverse telephone directories based on Telstra data cannot be produced so long as Telstra does not licence their production.
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