Salceda tells telcos, NBI: Instead of long hotlines for phishing complaints, why not use ‘69’?

Joey Salceda

MANILA, Philippines — Instead of long telephone numbers for people complaining about phishing, why not use the hotline ‘69’?

This was the suggestion of Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda during the House of Representatives committee on information and communications technology’s hearing on the issue, after learning from National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Victor Lorenzo that their current hotline is 523-8231.

Salceda then turned to the three telecommunications companies present during the hearing — Smart Communications, Globe Telecom, and Dito Telecommunity — if they could reserve 69 for phishing complaints.

“Can you reserve the number 69 for all complaints with respect to digital scams? The system would be in charge on where to route the calls,” Salceda asked in Filipino.

“Yes, Mr. Chair, upon the request of NBI, if they want to have a hotline number, we would gladly work with one,” Globe’s policy division head Ariel Tubayan told the lawmaker.

“Give them now one,” Salceda answered.

The Albay lawmaker also asked Smart and Dito, who assured the House that they would work with NBI to create an easy-to-remember hotline for phishing and other digital scam complaints.

The said committee is tackling the issue of phishing scams through text messages after users saw a rise in these scam attempts and with messages bearing the names of the phone users.

Earlier, Lorenzo also told the panel that scammers verify the numbers and identity of their targets through Viber and Facebook, which can show who is currently using that specific account.

Small coverage in complaints

The suggestion of a hotline from Salceda was also prompted by an admission from NBI that they have covered a small number of complaints, despite thousands — or maybe millions of phone holders getting phishing messages on a near-daily basis.

According to Salceda, Republic Act No. 8484 or the Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998 can still be used by authorities against scammers — especially if the law does not hinder law enforcers from going after perpetrators of phishing scams.

But when asked how many cases were filed, the NBI official said that for active cases before the COVID-19 pandemic, they have 200.  The active cases investigated jumped to around 400 to 500 during the pandemic.

Such a number, however, Salceda said, is way below the incidence of phishing in the country.

“So it seems small, right? So we’re not covering, we’re not preventing. That’s the problem in the law if you only have (R.A) 8484 and allows you to do 400, and in my own estimate, the phishing messages sent in the past few weeks were around 25 million,” Salceda said.

“So you cannot finish all of that if you’re doing 400, 500 only. The best deterrence is still enforcement, sir. You have five cases only against 400, which means either the public is not complaining, etcetera, but the problem here is how do you stop this if there is no deterrent, how can there be a deterrent if there’s no enforcement?” he asked.

Lorenzo clarified though, that one single operation does not mean only one text phishing scam was deterred, as NBI’s operatives sometimes shut down call center types where scammers operate jointly.  However, he also admitted that they have not yet conducted any single operation where over 1,000 computers or gadgets were confiscated.

Both houses of Congress are crafting laws to do away with phishing text messages, especially after lawmakers themselves received these scam attempts.  Lawmakers from both the House and Senate believe that the SIM card registration bill would curb such incidents, as state regulators and telecommunication companies would immediately know who is behind a texting scam. With reports from Lyka Farillon, INQUIRER.net trainee

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