(Bloomberg) -- Australian phone company Telstra Corp. called for a review of laws governing data retention after scams targeting customers reached new highs and a leak of years of information about its employees.

“The time is right for a discussion on the laws around keeping data,” Chief Executive Officer Vicki Brady told Telstra’s annual meeting Tuesday. “It’s a fine balance between identifying our customers, protecting them against fraud, maintaining their privacy, and helping law enforcement combat crime.”

Telstra is blocking “unprecedented levels of malicious activity” against customers, including rogue calls and text messages, Brady said. As these attacks grow, clients are rightly asking what identity documents are being held, for what purpose, and for how long, she said.

Telstra’s main rival Optus, which is owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., last month revealed a vast hack of the records of almost 10 million current and former customers. Optus faces complaints that it failed to protect personal information and destroy data it no longer needed.

SingTel on Monday disclosed a second Australian business it owns, technology consultancy Dialog, had also suffered a recent cyberattack that potentially exposed client and customer data. 

Brady said the Optus attack puts the cyber threat into “stark focus.” Telstra last week said a third party was affected by a data breach that included limited information about Telstra employees from 2017. While Dialog has provided services to Telstra, it’s not clear whether the attack on Dialog was the one that exposed data on Telstra staff.

Telstra Chairman John Mullen also called on businesses and government to work together to combat cyber attacks.

“It is easy to be critical when it isn’t you in the firing line, and we should all avoid hubris because no one can be complacent and no organization can ever be 100% sure that it is completely protected and safe,” Mullen told the annual meeting. 

“The threat and sophistication of the attackers grows every day, and business needs to put aside competitive rivalry and work constructively across industries, with government, and with the community, to protect Australia from this modern scourge,” he said.  

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