WhatsApp bans international spam calls in India after government crackdown

New Delhi. Meta-owned WhatsApp on Thursday said it has cracked down on the growing threat of international scam calls in India after the government announced taking cognizance of the issue and sending notices to the platform. The platform, which has over 500 million users in the country, said it has sharpened its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems to reduce such incidents.

A company spokesperson said, “Our new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50 percent and we expect to be able to handle the current incidents more effectively.” We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure a safe and secure experience for our users.

Earlier in the day, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the IT ministry will send a notice to WhatsApp on the issue of spam calls from unknown international numbers, stressing that social media platforms are responsible for ensuring security.

These spam calls flooded WhatsApp users in India with fake messages from unknown users mostly from African and South East Asian countries with international numbers.

The spam calls showed country codes for Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Ethiopia. Most of these calls originated from plus 251 (Ethiopia), plus 62 (Indonesia), plus 254 (Kenya), plus 84 (Vietnam) and other countries.

WhatsApp said international scam calls are a new tactic adopted by bad actors recently.

By giving missed calls, they trick eager users to call or message back, only to be duped.

We continue to provide a range of security tools within WhatsApp, such as block and report, continually build user security education and awareness, as well as proactively remove bad-actors from our platform, said a company spokesperson. (IANS)

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