WhatsApp scam calls have been on the rise lately, which led to the Minister of State for IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, warning to send notice to Meta’s messaging platform. The company has now responded to the call and has assured that it is working on safeguarding users’ privacy and security. The company has released a statement saying it’s taking measures to curb spam calls. The measures include amping up AI and ML systems to reduce the scam calling rate by 50%. Here’s all you need to know about the latest development.
WhatsApp to Work on Curbing Scam Calls
WhatsApp is a leader among end-to-end encrypted services in protecting user safety. We continue to provide several safety tools within WhatsApp like Block & Report, consistently build user safety education & awareness, as well as, proactively weed out bad-actors from our… pic.twitter.com/BSEtOBGnrK
— ANI (@ANI) May 11, 2023
As mentioned before, WhatsApp has responded to IT Ministry’s call to send a notice regarding the scam calls and messages received by users. The ministry also warned WhatsApp about investigating the privacy bug reported by a Twitter engineer.
Notably, after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked telecom operators to reduce the number of scam calls using AI solutions, scammers shifted their attention to WhatsApp and its users. Multiple users, including a MySmartPrice team member, have received calls from international numbers. These calls came from numbers with country codes – 84 Vietnam), +62 (Indonesia), and +223 (Mali), among others.
WhatsApp has responded to the ministry’s call: “WhatsApp is a leader among end-to-end encrypted services in protecting user safety. We continue to provide several safety tools within WhatsApp like Block & Report, consistently build user safety education & awareness, as well as, proactively weed out bad actors from our platform. However, bad actors find different ways to scam users. International scam calls are a new way that bad actors have recently adopted. By giving a missed call, they lead curious users to call or message back only to get scammed. We have quickly ramped up our AI & ML systems to bring down such incidents significantly. Our new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50 percent and we expect to be able to control the current incidence effectively.“
WhatsApp is asking users to block and report suspicious numbers so that these scammers can be removed from the platform. The company also recently launched Ensuring User Safety in India on WhatsApp campaign for users. This blog post is intended to help unsuspecting new users to stay safe online. The article outlines various security features, such as two-step verification, biometrics lock, group privacy settings, etc. Truecaller has also announced caller ID and spam protection for WhatsApp.
The best way to avoid scammers is by not receiving calls or interacting with messages received from unknown international numbers. If you receive such suspicious calls or messages, open a chat with the contact, tap on the number on top to open contact info, then tap on Report>Report and Block.
