Mobile phone users are being urged to boycott the next generation of 5G phones and join a global movement calling on urgent changes to existing safety standards because "the test is rigged."

The creatively-charged We Are Not SAM campaign has been launched by Northern Rivers for Safe Technology, a high-profile community group based in Byron Bay, Australia. Thanks to intense lobbying by the group, the Byron Shire has so far remained 5G free, one of the few municipalities in Australia to do so.

We Are Not SAM campaign creator Rinat Strahlhofer, an ex-telecommunications insider who's now intent on exposing the truth about the industry, said people would be shocked to discover the truth about their smartphones.

"Telcos have been getting away with certifying mobile devices as safe for years because the test is rigged," Strahlhofer said.

"In the same way truth and public health suffered at the hands of the tobacco and asbestos industries, 5G phones are being pushed on the market despite a lack of independent, long-term studies to show they are safe."

She said it was not widely known that the global telecommunications industry conducts safety tests about the heating effects of mobile phone wireless radiation on a plastic dummy called SAM, also known as a Specific Anthropomorphic Mannequin.