Whatsapp beefs up AI, ML after Govt’s tough stance on international scam calls

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is gearing up to send notice to WhatsApp on international scam calls, following a plethora of complaints by users. The users have given instances of receiving spam calls from numbers originating from countries like Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia through Whatsapp.

In response to the Indian Government’s call to send notice to WhatsApp on international scam calls, the messaging platform, in a statement issued, assured, “Protecting the privacy and security of users is fundamental to Meta and to WhatsApp. Our users are at the heart of everything we do and we are fully aligned with the Government’s goal of keeping users safe. WhatsApp is a leader among end-to-end encrypted services in protecting user safety.”

The WhatsApp Spokesperson further said, “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 and ML systems to bring down such incidents significantly. Our new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50% and we expect to be able to control the current incidence effectively. We will continue to work relentlessly towards ensuring a safe experience for our users,” the WhatsApp Spokesperson added.