Telcos to enable overseas call blocking, says Josephine Teo
Yong Jun Yuan
THE government will work with telcos to give people the option to block all overseas calls, said Minister for Communications and Information Josephine Teo.
In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, she said that although telcos have marked calls with the “+65” prefix to warn people about overseas calls masquerading as local calls, it can still be “very annoying” to receive them.
“Speaking as a person with an elderly parent, I find this feature useful because I can then activate it for my parents’ mobile phones.
“This will prevent the vulnerable who may accidentally answer an overseas call from a scammer and be tricked into it,” the minister said.
On Thursday (Jan 4), the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said that customers of mobile network operators, such as Singtel, StarHub, M1 and Simba, will be able to enable and disable international number blocking from Jan 5 through different channels, including calls, SMSes or through their apps.
An Imda spokesperson said that customers of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) will be able to do so “at a later date”. MVNOs include telcos such as Circles.Life and Vivifi, which lease network capacity from network operators.
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Scammers typically use Internet calling services to spoof local numbers.
Since April 2020, all such calls have been marked with a “+65” prefix to warn people that they may not be legitimate local calls.
In a ministerial statement made on Feb 15, 2022, Teo said that the extent of call blocking needed showed how persistent scammers are in reaching potential victims.
“Even if our telcos can block millions of incoming overseas calls, we must not be lulled into a false sense of security,” she said.
Social media posts emerged in March 2023 about scam robocalls being made using local numbers that did not have the “+65” prefix.
In one instance, one such robocall claimed there were issues with the individual’s identity card.
Experts suspected that scam syndicates were getting hold of Singapore SIM cards by enlisting locals to help purchase these numbers, or by picking up carelessly disposed cards.
In addition, IMDA said that it is working with telcos to extend the option to block SMS messages from international numbers by mid-2024.
Teo also said the ministry will also be working with Google, which maintains the Android operating system for smartphones, to improve anti-malware measures at the device level.
In 2023, users were targeted with malware that they were tricked into sideloading on their Android phones, which later compromised their banking apps.
In its 2023 mid-year statistics for scam and cybercrime cases, the police said there were at least 750 cases of such malware scams. Of these, 11 had unauthorised withdrawals made from their Central Provident Fund savings.
In the second half of 2023, banks implemented anti-malware features within their apps to detect apps with risky permission settings.
If such apps are detected, the banking apps will stop working until the offending apps are uninstalled.
In October 2023, Google also implemented a new feature in its Google Play Protect security programme, which is installed on all Android phones, to scan apps’ code in real time to detect previously undetected threats.
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