NEW DELHI: The government is planning to send a notice to WhatsApp on the issue of spam calls from unknown international numbers, said Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Thursday.
The minister, on the sidelines of an event organised by the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI), said digital platforms are responsible and accountable for ensuring the safety of ‘digital nagriks’. “The government will respond to every instance of alleged misuse or alleged breach of users’ privacy,” said the minister.
Recently, WhatsApp users in the country reported a massive surge in incoming international spam calls. The users have received calls or messages on WhatApp from countries code belonging to Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), Malaysia (+60), Kenya (+254) and Ethiopia (+251). They send phishing messages like job offers or fake threats like the closure of bank accounts, along with a link to click.
The minister raised concern over how scammers access mobile phone users’ numbers. “How are they able to identify which numbers are on WhatsApp or are they doing it blindly or is it some database they have got? If there is a database it is a violation of privacy,” said the minister.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp said it is ramping up its AI & ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) systems to bring down such incidents significantly. The company said it will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50% and will be able to control the current incidence effectively.
“We continue to provide several safety tools within WhatsApp like Block & 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. International scam calls is 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. Therefore, we have quickly ramped up our AI & ML systems to bring down such incidents significantly,” said the company in a statement. A few days back, director of engineering at Twitter Foad Dabiri accused WhatsApp of using the microphone in the background while he was sleeping on May 6.