WhatsApp has said it is strengthening its systems to tackle the menace of spurt in international scam calls in India. The company’s response comes after the government took cognisance of the issue and announced that it will send a notice to the Meta-owned company.
“Protecting the privacy and security of users is fundamental to Meta and to WhatsApp. Our users are at the heart of everything we do and we are fully aligned with the Government’s goal of keeping users safe. WhatsApp is a leader among end-to-end encrypted services in protecting user safety,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.
“Protecting the privacy and security of users is fundamental to Meta and to WhatsApp. Our users are at the heart of everything we do and we are fully aligned with the Government’s goal of keeping users safe. WhatsApp is a leader among end-to-end encrypted services in protecting user safety,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.
WhatsApp to ramp up AI and ML systems
WhatsApp said that in order to bring down international scam calls incidents significantly, it is quickly ramping up its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems.
“Our new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50 per cent and we expect to be able to control the current incidence effectively. We will continue to work relentlessly towards ensuring a safe experience for our users,” the spokesperson added.
IT ministry to send notice to WhatsApp
Earlier in the day, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT, said that the IT ministry will send a notice to WhatsApp on the issue of spam calls from unidentified international numbers.
He stressed that social media platforms are responsible for ensuring the safety and trust of users.
International spam calls
Earlier this week, several users shared screenshots of their call records showing calls coming from phone numbers that start with +62 (Indonesia), +254 (Kenya), +251 (Ethiopia) and +60 (Malaysia). These calls are potentially fraud.
WhatsApp said that international scam calls are a new way that scammers have adopted. By giving a missed call, they lead curious users to call or message back and try to scam them.
“We continue to provide several safety tools within WhatsApp like Block and Report, consistently build user safety education and awareness, as well as, proactively weed out bad-actors from our platform. However, bad actors find different ways to scam users,” the company spokesperson noted.
WhatsApp has over 500 million users in India.
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