NEW DELHI: When government agencies noticed a flood of calls from Indian phone numbers being used for frauds, the telecom department (DoT) and companies responded with “International Incoming Spoofed Calls Prevention System” which was used to block 70% of the “spoofed calls”, with a large number originating overseas.
The result: From 1.5 crore calls a day that number has dropped to around 5 lakh now. But in the cat and mouse game the scammers have now resorted to using virtual private networks, resulting in several of the Indian calls also showing up as those from overseas.
DoT is now seeking to tackle this menace as well through a dialogue with international long distance operators as well as use of AI. “This is a more complex problem that requires a multi-pronged solution. There is no mathematical formula to block all calls with international numbers so there may be some cost attached,” said an official. Multiple agencies are at work to ensure that frauds through phones are attacked. Several of the tools deployed have shown some positive results, although the fraudsters come up with new ways.
For instance, the use of a facial recognition and AI-powered tool called ASTR has helped identify SIM cards taken by the same person in different names. As a result, some 78 lakh connections have been found to be fraudulent and 365 FIRs have been registered against 1,900 points of sale that were found to be violating norms.
Besides, when DoT analysed 6.9 lakh Indian mobile users who were on roaming in Southeast Asia since July 2024 it suspected that several were being used to commit frauds in the country. Based on this analysis, around 2 lakh connections and 9,828 handsets have been blocked.
Digital Intelligence Platform for sharing information related to misuse of telecom resources has seen 520 entities, including central security agencies, state police, I4C, GSTN, 460 banks, telecom companies and the likes of WhatsApp come on board.
