What is Chakshu, India's new SMS and call fraud reporting portal?

Online scams are on the rise in India.

In an attempt to curb the menace of cybercrime and spam calls, the government has rolled out the Chakshu platform, which will allow users to report calls and messages by fraudsters .

The new initiative will provide an additional line of protection against anonymous criminals who steal money from people via advanced technology.

Here’s all we know about it.

Combating frauds and spam calls using ‘Chakshu’

Chakshu is a part of the citizen-centric facilities available on the Sanchar Saathi portal.

The Department of Telecommunication’s (DoT) new platform makes it easier to report fraud calls and messages and enables real-time intelligence-sharing among several stakeholders.

Union IT and Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “Chakshu is about reporting something that people suspect is fraud.”

According to Livemint, Chakshu will act as “an information exchange and coordination agency among telecom companies, law enforcement agencies, banks and financial institutions, social media platforms, and authorities issuing identity documents.”

Information about instances that have been identified as telecom resource misuse will also be available on the portal.

The government will also create a grievance redressal platform for reporting connections disconnected inadvertently, as well as for creating a mechanism for returning money frozen as a result, Vaishnaw said, as per Hindustan Times.

Launched along with Chakshu, the DoT also unveiled the Digital Intelligence Platform that will coordinate and share information with law enforcement agencies, banks and other financial agencies to act on fraud, according to PTI.

“With the Chakshu and Digital Intelligence Platform, we think the pace at which we were able to detect and prevent cyber frauds will significantly improve,” Vaishnaw said.

Since its introduction in May last year, Sanchar Saathi has assisted over 700,000 people in tracking down lost phones, blocking those phones, reporting identity theft incidents, and identifying over 6.7 million questionable communication attempts.

How it will work

According to Vaishnaw, Chakshu will “allow Indian citizens to report fraudulent communication – whether received on call or SMS, or social media like WhatsApp. Once such information is received, the platform will trigger re-verification, and failing re-verification, the number will be disconnected.”

When asked about the process put in place for mobile numbers that are leaked by businesses, the minister said that subscribers can report the number of leaks on the Chakshu portal and action will be taken against the culprit.

The minister said that there will be an investigation carried out on the reported number and action will be taken thereafter.

The result of tracking frauds via digital measures

Vaishnaw said through digital measures to check fraud and crime, the Department of Telecom Services has been able to help citizens save around Rs 1,000 crore in the last nine months and Rs 1,008 crore has been frozen in various bank accounts that were linked to fraudulent transactions, reported PTI.

He added that the ministry is also working with financial institutions including RBI to recover money and prevent and freeze accounts in which money has been transferred fraudulently.

According to the news agency, he said that 17 lakh mobile numbers have been blocked in the last nine months that were used only once, especially for fraudulent activities.

The report quoted Telecom Secretary Neeraj Mittal as saying that the two new portals are yet another step for dealing with cyber security threats to every citizen’s digital assets. He said the new tools will help curb any kind of fraudulent means and misuse of the communications system.

Minister of State for Communications Devusinh Chauhan appreciated the efforts of DoT which he said, has successfully completed several projects for countering cyber-security threats. He said that many more such projects are under development to deal with new and emerging frauds, he said.

Rising cases of phone calls scam

Fraudsters posing as bank employees or government representatives have called people to update their bank account or gas and electricity connection information in a number of high-profile fraud cases.

According to India Today, half of the Indians who have received such fake calls have admitted that they were unable to differentiate between a genuine call and an AI-generated fake voice call. The report said around 83 per cent of the people who received these calls fell prey for the trap and lost money.

According to McAfee’s survey titled The Artificial Imposter from seven countries, including India, 69 per cent of Indians are not sure if they can tell the difference between a real voice and a cloned one that is created by AI.

47 per cent of Indian adults have either experienced or known someone who has experienced an AI voice scam. About 48 per cent of the people lost more than Rs 50,000.

Another survey conducted by LocalCircles showed 60 per cent of respondents received an average of three spam calls every day over the past year.

30 per cent received one to two calls on average, 36 per cent said they got three to five calls each day, 21 per cent got six to 10 spam calls, three per cent received over 10 unwanted calls and just six per cent “did not get any such calls.”

Following this concerning increase, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India released its final recommendations last month to make caller identification the standard feature on all domestic telecom networks in an effort to protect consumers from scammers.

Earlier in January this year, the DoT warned citizens about a call-forwarding scam , which let the scammer gets access to their target’s phone calls.

With inputs from PTI