Australians still pay to use commercial sunbeds illegally, more than ten years since a nationwide ban in a country with one of the world's highest rates of skin cancer.
Private use of solariums remains legal but renting them out is banned in every state and territory, except the Northern Territory, where there are no commercial tanning businesses.
But in NSW alone, the state's Environment Protection Authority receives an average of 16 reports per year about suspected improper solarium operations.
Classified as Group 1 carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, sunbeds emit ultraviolet radiation linked to 95 per cent of melanomas, the deadliest skin cancer.
Before the ban in late 2014, more than 2800 skin cancer cases and 43 melanoma-related deaths Australia-wide were attributed annually to solarium use, costing the health system around $3 million, according to Cancer Council Australia.
The ban is estimated to have averted more than 31,000 melanomas in young Australians over their lifetime.
Yet some private owners make a business of charging people to use their solariums or modified "collariums", which might use different coloured lights but still emit harmful UV radiation.
The NSW authority recently fined a Wollongong man $3000 for operating two sunbeds from two separate properties in the area.
The legality of private ownership is providing rogue operators with a loophole and tanning services are often advertised covertly online, says the authority's director of operations Adam Gilligan.
"Sunbed use increases melanoma risk by almost 60 per cent - this isn't just illegal, it's dangerous," he said.
Overexposure to UV radiation puts people at increased risk of skin cancer, whether direct sunlight or sunbed, the Cancer Council's National Skin Cancer Committee chair Anne Cust warned.
"A suntan signals skin damage - there is no such thing as a safe tan," Professor Cust said.
In September the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a survey funded by the Cancer Council that revealed nearly one in ten Australians - more two million people - had attempted to tan in the previous year, including one-quarter of women aged 15 to 24.
Some 1.5 million Australians had been sunburnt in the previous week and little more than half used three or more sun protection measures, according to the survey.
Cancer Council Australia urges all Australians use all five SunSmart measures: slip on protective clothing, slop on SPF50+ sunscreen, slap on a broad-brimmed hat, seek shade and slide on sunglasses when UV levels are high.
