Earlier today, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar at an event organized by the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI) replying to questions of reporters said that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) will send a notice to WhatsApp regarding the international spam calls issue.
For the past few days, several users have been reporting spam and scam call issue on WhatsApp from unknown international numbers from countries like Kenya (+254), Malaysia (+60), Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), and Ethiopia (+251).
In response, WhatsApp said that protecting the privacy and security of users is fundamental to Meta and to WhatsApp. It said that it is fully aligned with the Government’s goal of keeping users safe.
WhatsApp added that there are several safety tools within WhatsApp like Block & Report options in the app, and it continues to educate users about safety and awareness, as well as, proactively weed out bad-actors from its platform.
However, bad actors find different ways to scam users, it said. “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,” WhatsApp said.
After the government’s call, WhatsApp has ramped up its AI & ML systems, which it says will bring down such incidents significantly. The company said that the new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50%, and it expects it to be able to control the current incidence effectively.