


FinTech in India’s concern of WhatsApp spam callsįurther, India is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for digital financial transactions, which have increased significantly over the last five years. The Government of India’s concern over these spam calls stemmed from the fact that it was readying a Digital Personal Data Protection legislation, the draft of which has been circulated for public reactions and comments. There are agencies that sell international numbers for these calls in different cities. Media reports pointed out that although the spam calls and messages carried the country codes of the numbers from which they originated, the calls could have been made from any part of the world, as WhatsApp calls are made over the Internet. WhatsApp also said it had ramped up its artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to bring down international spam calls significantly. WhatsApp responded by stating that it would apply spam detection technology to spot and act on accounts engaging in abnormal behavior to stop the spam calls. WhatsApp users took to another social media platform, Twitter, to highlight the issue. Most of the spam calls offered jobs, which were fraudulent, and asked the users to connect through other messaging platforms such as Telegram. How were WhatsApp users identified and accessed to begin with? Were databases or bots leveraged in order to do this? These questions grew as focal points of the WhatsApp Spam calls controversy. The Minister said he would seek a response from WhatsApp as the onus on ensuring user safety and privacy was with the digital platform WhatsApp spam calls controversy The media in India carried reports of these spam calls and messages forcing a junior minister in the Government of India in the Ministry of Information Technology, Mr. The calls were from random numbers with country codes ranging from Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Kenya and Ethiopia, and a few from the USA. (2)Īll across India in May, Mobile phone users received warning SMS messages either from their telecom operator or from their bank after there was a massive spurt in international scam calls and messages over WhatsApp. “WhatsApp calls from international numbers can be dangerous: How to stay safe” reads the front page of the Times of India. WhatsApp responds to the Government of India’s concerns over spurt in international spam calls and messages over the platform Privacy and security concerns as spam calls onWhatsApp prompt the Government to react in India
