The Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry is developing the "DE-fence" platform to prevent fraudulent calls and text messages in a fresh effort to suppress call centre gangs.
The platform is slated to be officially launched in early 2025, according to the ministry.
The platform will inform receivers of a call or message if the source of an incoming call or SMS is a scammer and will inform the recipient of the risk level.
Deputy Prime Minister and DES Minister Prasert Jantararuangthong said the platform will work closely with related parties, including telecom service providers, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) and law enforcement agencies such as the police.
According to statistics gathered by the Online Complaint Management Center of the Royal Thai Police, between Oct 1, 2023 and Sept 30, 2024, 330,000 online reports of technology crimes were recorded, which is estimated to have resulted in a total of more than 37 billion baht in damage.
Mr Prasert said through recent discussions on the scam issue with related parties, such as the NBTC, the Royal Thai Police, telecom service providers and the National Cyber Security Agency, they agreed to establish the DE-fence platform to complement existing systems in suppressing fraudulent call centres.
The move is also in line with the ministry's measures, requiring all SMS messaging service providers to re-register within this year. In fact, they must register every year in order to be able to identify who are the SMS service providers and the senders of scam messages.
Mr Prasert said the DE-fence platform will be connected with the databases of telecom operators to obtain the most up-to-date mobile phone numbers.
It will also be connected with the databases of the Royal Thai Police, the Anti-Money Laundering Office and the Anti-Online Scam Operation Centre (AOC) to enable it to alert people as to whether or not an incoming call is from a scammer.
Before reading a text message, people can also check for any unusual signs in links attached to the SMS.
In addition, the platform will offer an online reporting system and a system to request the seizure of a criminal's bank accounts via the AOC 1441 hotline service, so the police will be able to immediately take action.
The platform will classify incoming calls and text messages into three groups: a black list, a grey list and a white list.
The black list represents numbers from criminals that have been confirmed by the relevant agencies and platform users are advised to block them.
The grey list is suspicious numbers from overseas or an internet channel. The system will notify users of the risk level of the incoming call or SMS.
The white list is numbers that have been confirmed by relevant agencies as belonging to government agencies. They are also the numbers platform users confirm they want to receive calls or messages from.
According to the ministry, the initial phase of the platform development will focus on the development of the white list.
Mr Prasert said the DE-fence platform will be connected with the databases of telecom operators to obtain the most up to date mobile phone numbers.