What have Viettel, Vinaphone, MobiFone done to prevent spam calls?
Báo Dân trí•14/07/2024
(Dan Tri) - By deploying a series of technological solutions as well as AI applications, network operators have actively prevented and reduced the number of spam calls.
Since August 2022, network operators have signed a commitment agreement (MoU) to implement a plan to prevent and handle spam calls and a plan to manage mobile subscriber information. At the request of the Telecommunications Department, network operators have deployed a subscriber screening system with criteria such as total number of successful outgoing calls, call success rate, average call duration, etc. Through this data, network operators will select and put subscribers into the suspect group. Specifically, every time a suspicious subscriber makes an outgoing call, the network operator will conduct a survey of the call recipient via USSD message to see if the call is an advertisement or bothering customers. If there is a response of 2 "YES" (confirming that it is a spam call) or more, the subscriber will be locked.
A series of technological solutions are applied
Speaking to Dan Tri reporters, a Viettel representative said that in the first 6 months of 2024, the number of spam and scam calls according to the suspicion criteria of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) had decreased by half compared to the same period in 2023. The network also said that it had applied drastic measures to prevent the spread of spam and scam calls. Network operators are implementing various solutions to limit spam calls (Photo: Ministry of Information and Communications ). " Viettel has deployed an Antispam call system using AI (Pattern Matching) and Big data technology to quickly identify subscribers suspected of spreading spam and scam calls. Viettel hopes that people will actively respond to spam and scam call survey messages to join hands to completely prevent this problem," said a Viettel representative. In addition, Viettel also forwards reports of calls with signs of fraud to the Information Security Department to coordinate with the police to verify and handle. In addition, to refuse to receive unwanted advertising calls, people can text to register on the do-not-advertise list. For Viettel subscribers, users can call the customer care hotline (198) or access the My Viettel application to report when receiving spam and scam calls. Viettel is also deploying solutions on this application so that people can proactively prevent spam and scam calls. In addition to the above solutions, a representative of VNPT network said that the unit also proactively analyzed and evaluated according to its own criteria to put subscribers into the suspect group and conducted surveys on customers. "However, the customer response rate is still relatively low. The average figure is below 2%. This also causes many difficulties for the network when there is not enough information to process," said a representative of VNPT. Meanwhile, a representative of MobiFone shared that the network has optimized the system to improve monitoring efficiency and proactively changed the monitoring threshold to monitor and block the behavior of subscribers suspected of spam calls, improve monitoring efficiency, and prevent subscribers from making spam calls on the network. People also need to cooperate with network operators to prevent spam calls (Photo: CNN). "Every month, MobiFone reports the results of handling subscribers who send spam messages and make spam calls to state management agencies in accordance with regulations. MobiFone has proactively built an automatic system to monitor and prevent spam calls (Spam Call System) in compliance with Decree 91 and the Regulations of the State Management Agency to promptly prevent subscribers from calling and bothering customers," said a MobiFone representative. To limit the negative impact of spam calls and messages, people are also advised to cooperate in answering the network operator's survey on spam calls. This will help network operators screen and accurately handle violating calls as well as help management agencies have information to issue appropriate management sanctions. When detecting spam calls, people can report them through the portal for receiving feedback on spam messages and spam calls, via the message number 5656 and the information portal https://thongbaorac.ais.gov.vn/ of the Department of Information Security.
Why do harassing calls still exist?
In 2023, the Ministry of Information and Communications requested network operators to standardize subscriber information to remove junk SIMs and unregistered SIMs from the system. After a large-scale crackdown, a total of 19.6 million subscribers with inconsistent information were processed. However, the problem of spam calls still haunts mobile users in Vietnam. Recently, many people have expressed their frustration at being constantly bothered by unwanted calls with content inviting them to borrow money, broker, introduce products, or even scam. Junk SIMs are not entirely the source of harassing calls (Photo: The Anh). In fact, junk SIMs are not entirely the source of harassing calls, sales calls or service introductions. Even "genuine" SIMs can be the cause of this situation. This is the opinion of Mr. Pham Duc Long, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications, at a meeting held in September 2023. According to Mr. Long, the cause of this situation is partly due to telesales or remote marketing activities via phone. "This is a profession, it is marketing. Therefore, not only Vietnam but the whole world is suffering from this problem. And even when all junk SIMs are blocked, there will still be harassing and fraudulent calls. We need to clearly distinguish between these two concepts," Deputy Minister Long commented. The Ministry of Information and Communications has also had a scenario to prevent the spread of junk calls on cyberspace. However, this activity requires the proactive participation of relevant agencies, organizations and the people themselves. Accordingly, agencies and organizations such as schools, banks, and hospitals need to proactively disseminate phone numbers and official communication channels to users. People need to raise awareness of protecting personal information, and be vigilant when listening to and following requests from strange numbers that are not in the contact list.
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