Five slots on the loop
Digital signs: the rules for what goes on the screen
A digital sign can run a loop of many ads, and the rules follow the content rather than the frame. A gaming machine ad, an election ad, a tobacco ad and a television broadcast each brings its own law, and a camera in the sign brings privacy law.
This guide to screen content is published by Dotto from the official sources linked on each page. Each of the five guides below takes one slot on the loop and sets out the rule as its own Act or decision states it.
General information, not legal advice. The Acts and decisions, linked at the foot of each page, are the official word.
The loop, slot by slot
- 01
Gaming machine ads on a screen
New South Wales bars gaming machine advertising, and its Act’s meaning of “publish” names “electronics” and “television”. Victoria bars it outside a venue’s gaming machine area or a casino’s boundaries, with narrow exceptions.
- 02
Election ads on a screen
Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the person who approved a paid electoral advertisement, the “notifying entity”, must ensure its particulars are notified. On an electronic billboard, they go at the end of the communication.
- 03
Cameras in signs
Three Privacy Commissioner determinations about retailers that captured customers’ faces, starting with survey tablets that had built-in cameras, and where each case stood on the latest date the OAIC or the Tribunal gives.
- 04
Tobacco and vaping ads on a screen
Section 31 of the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Act 2023, its point-of-sale permission, covers a tobacco ad at a shop only where a state or territory law expressly deals with such displays, the display complies, and the ad is not visible from outside.
- 05
Showing broadcast TV on a screen
Section 199 of the Copyright Act 1968 covers sound recordings and films in a broadcast received in public. The Australian Law Reform Commission noted in 2013 that the music still needs its own licence.
Who each law speaks to
A screen can have an owner, a venue it sits in and an advertiser whose content it plays. Each law below addresses someone different, in its own words.
| Content | Law | Addressed to |
|---|---|---|
| Gaming machine ads, NSW | Gaming Machines Act 2001, section 43 | “A person (whether or not a hotelier or club)” |
| Gambling-related signs, NSW | Gaming Machines Act 2001, section 44 | “A hotelier or club” |
| Gaming machine ads, Victoria | Gambling Regulation Act 2003, sections 3.5.34AA and 3.5.34 | Venue and casino operators and people acting for them under one section; every other person under the other |
| Election ads, federal | Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, section 321D(5) | “The notifying entity” |
| Tobacco and e-cigarette ads | Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Act 2023, sections 19 and 42 | A person who publishes the material, or authorises or causes it to be published |
| Broadcasts received in public | Copyright Act 1968, sections 199 and 27(4) | A person who, by receiving the broadcast, causes the recording to be heard or the film to be seen; the occupier is deemed to be the one doing it where the equipment is provided by or with the occupier’s consent |
| Cameras that collect personal information | Privacy Act 1988, Australian Privacy Principle 5 | An “APP entity”, which includes a body corporate other than a small business operator |
How these guides are written
Each guide states a rule only as far as its official text goes, with the version or compilation date that text carries. Where a rule belongs to one state, the guide names the state. Penalties are given in penalty units, as each Act prints them, with a dollar figure only where a dated unit value is sourced.
The guides were checked against their sources on 9 October 2026. Where two official sources disagree, the guide prints the primary one with its date.