‘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,’ says WhatsApp
With WhatsApp users in India reporting a massive surge in incoming international spam calls over the past few days, the messaging app said it has “quickly ramped up” its AI and ML systems.
“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,” said Meta-owned WhatsApp.
Many users complained on Twitter that a major chunk of these spam calls had country codes belonging to Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), Malaysia (+60), Kenya (+254) and Ethiopia (+251).
WhatsApp’s statement comes after the IT Ministry said it will send a notice to WhatsApp on the issue of spam calls from unknown international numbers.
“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 & 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,” said WhatsApp in a statement.
Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted on Wednesday that the government will investigate a claim that WhatsApp accessed the microphone of smartphone users while the phone was not in use.
In a tweet, the minister had said the government will examine the alleged breach of privacy even as the new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill was being readied.
This followed a claim that WhatsApp accessed a user’s microphone while he was sleeping.
WhatsApp responded saying it has been in touch with the Twitter engineer over the last 24 hours, who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp.
WhatsApp responded saying it has been in touch with the Twitter engineer over the last 24 hours, who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp.
”We believe this is a bug on Android that misattributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate,” WhatsApp said in a tweet.
